Welcome to Yokubi!

The Common Grammar Guide.

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DO NOT skip reading the Before you begin and Preamble pages. They give you instructions on how to use this guide.

Before you begin

What you need

This guide assumes that you know the hiragana and katakana and that you're studying basic Japanese vocabulary. The most efficient way to learn the kana (hiragana+katakana) is to drill it through brute force. You can use a kana drill site for this. You can also learn by exposure.

This guide assumes that you know what writing systems Japanese uses, and that you know what Japanese text looks like, and what Kanji are.

This guide assumes that you're learning vocabulary outside this guide. It can't teach you enough words to be useful without getting in the way of the grammar.

If you need more guidance for things other than grammar, try the loop.

Check this: 置 How does this character render? If it's missing the vertical line on the left side, your browser is using Chinese fonts for japanese. You may need to install Japanese fonts or change some system language settings.

How to use this guide and Learn Japanese

Basically, this guide is a primer. This guide takes a very specific stance: The only way to acquire language features and become fluent is to consume them in a real context. This guide doesn't try to drill you, and that's a good thing.

When you read this guide, don't try to memorize it. It won't work.

You shouldn't spend a week on each lesson. In fact, one new lesson a day might be too slow, even if you're also reviewing old lessons.

Every single main lesson in this guide covers basic grammar. You should read the entire thing as quickly as possible. It's important to get stuff in your head sooner rather than later. It gives it time to grow, subconsciously, and even if you didn't feel like you learned it the first time, it makes it easier to remember it for good next time. Just don't get stuck reviewing it forever.

After you get far enough in this guide, you should start trying to consume Japanese content. Especially reading. This guide will tell you when it’s a good time to start, but if you want to try earlier you don’t need to wait.

Trying to read on a regular basis, even if you can't do it for more than five minutes, tells you exactly what your weak points are, and gives you a sense of progress. This guide exposes you to grammar to let you break down things, but you need to consume real Japanese to turn that exposure into acquisition.

The most efficient way to learn vocabulary is to start picking up words from media you enjoy, then memorize them with flashcards. This is called mining. Anki is the recommended flashcard program because it uses Spaced Repetition, which shows you stuff less often the better you know it. You can use frequency lists or shared decks prepared by other people at first if you don't want to mine or find the process of immersing in Japanese media still too hard. A good starter deck is the kaishi 1.5k deck.

If you want to speak Japanese, you must consume audible spoken Japanese, otherwise you'll sound unnatural. It doesn't matter if it's anime or news or living in Japan, you just have to consume it in the spoken unwritten form. This can come after you learn how to read, but you should passively expose yourself to it (with anything: visual novels, music, anime, etc) as early as possible, otherwise it'll take a long time for your brain to pick up on nuanced sound differences, like how Japanese people need to be trained before they can tell apart L and R. If you spend most of your time reading and ignore the spoken language, you can also acquire unnatural pronunciation and pitch accent that might be harder to fix later.

“Help!”

Don't sweat it. Try to find a way to use this guide in a nice low stress way. Don't angst out about something being hard. Some things just take time.

If you still don't know what to do, or you came back here confused:

• Start learning the hiragana and katakana outside this guide.
• Start studying vocabulary outside this guide.
• Understand that not all individual kanji represent complete Japanese words.
• Remind yourself that Japanese is not a literal transposition of English word-by-word
• A lot of concepts will not make sense in terms of literal English.
• You can't acquire a language without consuming it.
• Until you consume enough Japanese, some things simply won't click.
• Always keep moving forward. That's what gives you the language.

Do not memorize this guide. It won't work. It might even be bad for you.

Still stuck?

It's true that everyone learns the same way when it comes to mastery, fluency, exposure, and real world experience, but it's not true that everyone learns the same way when it comes to deliberate study. This guide is deliberate study, and it might not be right for everyone. If it doesn't start working after two weeks, try other resources. Reading explanations about the same thing in different places can make it easier to understand.

Just make sure you don't burn yourself out trying to master them. Mastery only comes from real world experience, and in the case of language learning, that means reading and listening.

Preamble

This guide will cover most of the grammar needed to understand basic japanese. It’s not going to go into too much detail, and it won't cover much vocabulary. If you are reading this in a browser, install a dictionary lookup extension like Yomitan so you can easily look up the words in the example sentences. Some words are basically grammar, though, so they will come up in specific lessons.

There are no exercises:

• Skill building, as in reading a grammar explanation and answering questions about it, doesn't work when it comes to learning a new language.
• A lot of people are poisoned by modern education and will basically fry their brains if there's anything to "work" on.
• Grammar guides are a terrible place to learn vocabulary.

If you want to pass a Japanese proficiency test, like the JLPT, this guide isn't targeted at you. You will likely be fine if you use it, because achieving Japanese proficiency is all that is needed to pass such tests, but it will likely betray your expectations in the short term. The topics in this guide are not sorted by JLPT difficulty and if your goal is to pass early levels in a short amount of time, you might be better off using JLPT-specific resources instead.

Not even the best linguists in the entire world can explain simple ideas like "gonna" with any less than an impenetrable book-length essay. That's not a matter of philosophy, it's a matter of explaining what things really mean, or how they work. Simple incomplete explanations are good, but have holes in them. This guide tries to walk the line and warn you about things it can't explain, but it's really hard. As a reader, you are expected to be flexible and take things written here at “face value”. Understand that this is how Japanese works, and that asking why is often not going to lead you anywhere.

This grammar guide does its best to give you some basic exposure to Japanese grammar. It can't teach you it. It can only introduce you to it. Your job is to turn that exposure into acquisition. The exposure is just a foot in the door.

And, by all means, if something is too hard, skip it. You're not trying to memorize something so you can pass a test. You're not trying to memorize something so you can identify it with 100% precision when you're consuming Japanese.

You're trying to get something into your head. If you can't, that's fine, you'll pick it up naturally later.

Don't look back.

Part 1: Getting Started

Everyone has to start somewhere. If you're not a kid, it's a lot easier to get started if you compare it to what you already know. Let's do that for a while. It's not as good as reading actual Japanese, but it will help a lot.

(This guide assumes you know the kana, you're learning vocabulary on your own, and you have a mouseover dictionary like Yomitan. If you don't, go fix that.)

The anatomy of Japanese sentences

When you approach the study of a new language, especially one like Japanese that does not use spaces to show word boundaries, your biggest source of confusion is going to be how to correctly separate the different parts of each sentence to more easily digest and understand them. We call this activity “parsing”.

No matter what, if you cannot “parse” a sentence, you will not understand its meaning. If you do not understand its meaning, you cannot acquire the language used in it. This lesson will give you a very brief and quick rundown of what to expect to achieve basic “parsing” abilities.

Japanese is an SOV language (Subject-Object-Verb), unlike English which is an SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) one.

English: I eat (an) apple
Japanese: I apple eat

It may seem weird at first, but you will get used to this “backwards” structure in no time as you get exposed to more and more language. Also, plenty of exceptions exist, this order is not a rule but a general recommendation.

Japanese has two general formations. Almost every sentence will be in the shape of “A is B” or “A does B”. Or, following Japanese order, “A B is” and “A B does”. We will see in the next lesson how to make “A B is” type sentences, and later we will learn “A B does” ones too. Then, we will learn how to connect and chain them together.

Another specific aspect of Japanese is that it is a pro-drop language. What this means is that anything that can be implied or understood from the context can be omitted. For example, if it is obvious who the subject is, we don’t need to state it again. “Apple eat” is a completely fine sentence, as long as we know the subject it refers to is “I”.

This is because Japanese is a “topic” driven language. Most Japanese conversations begin by setting the stage of what is being talked about, and then add more details with every new statement that relates back to the topic. When the focus shifts, we change the topic by raising a new one. Being able to identify and keep track of how the topic changes is fundamental to get a good “parse” on a sentence.

English: “I ate an apple then drank some water. What did you do?”   
Japanese: “About me, apple ate. Later, water drank. About you?”

It sounds like backwards caveman speak, but that’s just because representing Japanese structure in English is incredibly silly. This is the only example in the entire guide where we’ll be writing unnatural English as a comparison with Japanese. You should not think about Japanese this way. You need to think of Japanese in Japanese, because Japanese is not English.

State of being with だ and です

Let’s start from sentences in the shape of “A is B”. Japanese has two basic "is" words. The grammar term for such words is "copula". Copulas have a dedicated term because they're special verb-like things.

The two copulas in Japanese are だ and です. です is more polite than だ. Despite both being copulas, they can't always be used in the same patterns. Funnily enough, you can even omit them entirely while still implying an “A is B” type of relationship in your sentences. Especially だ is usually omitted at the end of conversational sentences in modern Japanese.

Unlike English, the state-of-being word goes after the word that you're using to describe something, rather than before it. We will see that this applies to most modifier words in Japanese: they apply to the word on their left.

ペンだ。
It's a pen.

ネコです。
It is a cat.

The difference between だ and です is generally a matter of politeness and formality. One thing important to remember is that, while です is the polite version of だ, the two aren’t always interchangeable and have a lot of different uses. You will learn them later.

Later you will also see です get used in places where English wouldn't allow "is". This is because it can even act just like a filler word with no added meaning.

To state that something is not, we turn the だ into ではない and です into ではありません. In speech the では gets slurred into じゃ so じゃない and じゃありません are more common. We will look at what this では does in a later lesson. There exists an alternative to ではありません which is just adding です after ではない/じゃない, the meaning is the same.

人じゃない
It’s not a person

本じゃないです or 本ではありません 
It is not a book (polite)

Japanese has two basic tenses: the plain tense and the past tense. Dictionaries list verbs by their plain tense, hence it’s also called “dictionary form”. In this context, “form” and “tense” are interchangeable.

The past form of だ is だった. The past form of です is でした.

オレだった！ 
It was me! (casual)

そうでした
That was so. (polite)

The dictionary form is usually called the present tense or the non-past tense. It's important to remember that it can be used in a lot of situations. Present tense and non-past tense are reasonable names, but don't treat names like rules, sometimes names are confusing. This guide will be using these names interchangeably.

The plain form and past tense usually line up with the English present and past tenses, but they're not used in all the same places. Just remember that English and Japanese often use tenses in very different ways.

In Japanese, ordinary statements about the future use the plain form most of the time. This is where the name "non-past" comes from.

Sometimes the past tense can also be used for things that are already completed like "has become", even if they're hypothetical and haven't happened yet. You might also hear it called “completed tense” or “completed form”.

Nouns, pronouns

Japanese has nouns (名詞) and pronouns (代名詞), just like English. Pronouns are less special than in English, and act just like normal nouns most of the time.

Most of the time, Japanese does not distinguish between singular and plural. Nouns and verbs don't have to agree for plurality, person, or gender. Japanese can explicitly refer to a group by attaching certain suffixes to nouns, but none of them are a true plural, they are often used to convey extra information that normal plurals don’t have.

Japanese has tons of personal pronouns (me, you, them) that English doesn't, but the demonstrative pronoun system (this, that, these, those) is much less irregular. Also, Japanese pronouns never change form for cases like English ones do (he vs him). You can just put suffixes on them.

Here are some examples. Don't bother memorizing these word lists. Learn words outside of this guide.

私・わたし me (normal, slightly formal when men use it)  
あたし me (casual, feminine)  
俺・おれ me (casual, masculine)  
僕・ぼく me (casual or polite, masculine)  
彼・かれ him  
彼女・かのじょ her  
あなた you

達 is a suffix. This suffix can be applied to pronouns and nouns. It refers to the entire group the noun/pronoun belongs to, and is one way to explicitly pluralize things.

私達・わたしたち Us  
ジム達・じむたち Jim and company  
ペン達・ぺんたち The pen and stuff

達 is usually for living things, and the usage with "pen" above is considered colloquial, or at least informal. It just shows up enough to be worth mentioning.

Japanese has compound words. They work the same way as in English.

町・まち town, district  
中・なか inside, middle  
町中・まちなか downtown, the middle of town

Japanese has prefixes and suffixes just like English. This is different from compound words. Prefixes and suffixes can't exist as their own standalone word and must be attached to something.

研究・けんきゅう research  
研究者・けんきゅうしゃ researcher

者, pronounced しゃ here, is a suffix. It can act like a piece of a compound word, but can't stand on its own as its own word. When 者 appears on its own in a sentence, it's a different word, and not pronounced as しゃ. Thanks, kanji.

Some words can have multiple ways they can be read. 明日, meaning "tomorrow", is normally read as あした, but can also be read あす (formal, not rare) or みょうにち (even more formal, much more rare). Watch out for reading variation when you start reading, or you'll be super confused.

Particles and grammatical case

Let’s look at more complex “A does B” type of statements. We will introduce verbs and conjugations in a later lesson, so take the example sentences used here just as a general guideline, don’t try to break them down.

To understand “A does B” sentences, we first need to introduce “particles” and the concept of loose word ordering.

Japanese uses "particles" (助詞), something similar to prepositions, to define the relationship words have with other parts of the sentence. Japanese particles come after the phrase or word they're modifying instead of before it. We say particles “attach” to the word to their left. We already saw something similar to particles in the previous lesson: the だ copula.

In English, we use word order to understand what role each word has in a sentence: subject, verb, object.

These roles are called "cases", and each role is a specific "case". Japanese uses particles to indicate these roles, that’s why they are often called “case-marking particles”. We say a particle “marks” a role when we want to say that the word it is attached to assumes said role in the sentence.

There's a default word order, and sometimes particles can even be omitted if the meaning can be inferred from context, but in general particles are the norm. Some words can also exist “freely” in a sentence without particles, we’ll take a look at them in a later lesson.

Remember: these translations are only for demonstration. The sentences and translations are only here for illustration, not instruction.

ジムがネコを食べる
Jim eats cats.

Here, が marks "Jim" as the subject. を marks ねこ as the direct object. Then the verb comes at the end of the sentence. The subject of a verb like "eat" is the thing doing the eating. The object is the thing that is being eaten.

As introduced in Lesson 0, it is more common to first introduce a “topic” rather than explicitly mark a subject or object. To do this, Japanese uses the “topic marker” particle は, which literally just says "this is what I'm talking about". Most grammar resources compare は to が. They do this because sometimes it's unnatural to use が, and you have to use は instead, or leave the subject unstated. But do not be tricked, は is more general than being an alternative to が. Sometimes it replaces が in the sentence as it introduces the subject as being the topic, but other times it can mark the object as a topic instead. In those cases, the thing marked by を is what gets replaced. As seen in the following examples.

ネコはジムが食べる
The cat, Jim eats it.

ジムはネコを食べる.
Jim eats a cat.

Since the default expectation is to first introduce a topic, and then describe it with the rest of the sentence, when we intentionally choose to explicitly make use of non-topic particles (like が) where a topic would be expected, it ends up putting an additional focus on that part of the sentence. This "focus" is in addition to が's behavior as a subject marker, not instead of it. It is common for が to have this nuance, but not all が are focus markers, sometimes they are just neutral subjects and the topic is something else.

Compare the following:

ジムがネコを食べる
Jim is the one that eats cats.

ジムはネコを食べる
Jim eats cats. 

English uses articles and funny sentence patterns for this kind of focus, but Japanese needs to rely on particles, because the order doesn’t matter grammatically.

Another difference is that the topic は is often assumed to be something that has already been introduced in a conversation (similar to “the” vs “a” in English), or something that is universally understood as a general statement.

For example, the following translations are all valid. Context will make it clear which is the most appropriate.

ネコは魚を食べる
Cats eat fish (cats in general)
The cat eats fish (the cat we were talking about)

ネコが魚を食べる  
A cat eats fish (a particular arbitrary cat)  
The cat is the one that eats fish (a specific cat out of a group)

This lesson is only scratching the surface of the various roles は and が can assume. Do not try to memorize them as universal truths, just be aware of the general vibe and meaning these sentences can convey when you see them in context.

Verbs

Japanese has both regular and irregular verbs (動詞). However, unlike English and its plethora of irregular verb conjugations (“read” -> “read”, “speak” -> “spoke”, etc), the majority of Japanese verbs are regular and follow a very strict set of pattern rules.

Japanese has two main categories of regular verbs: ichidan (一段) and godan (五段) and they conjugate differently. Ichidan means “one degree” (or “one step”) and godan means “five degrees” (or “five steps”). This terminology is important to understand how they conjugate.

Here's an example, using a ます (polite) form that we'll learn properly in Lesson 12. Don't bother memorizing this list.

見る／見ます, ichidan verb.
切る／切ります, godan verb, ending in る.
買う／買います, godan verb, ending in う.
死ぬ／死にます, godan verb, ending in ぬ.

Ichidan verbs always end in る, and just drop the る when they conjugate. The stuff leading up to that る is the verb's basic identity, and isn't changed. You can call it the “stem” of the verb. The verb itself, aside from the conjugation, has only "one form".

Godan verbs can end in one of several syllables, not just る. In the dictionary form, this syllable always ends in a u-sounding vowel, and different conjugations can change it to any of the other four vowels. This means that it can have any of five different vowels at the end. In other words, “five forms” or stems.

Godan verbs in the dictionary form can end in one of several different syllables, but it always ends in the (romaji) vowel "u". The following example verbs are all godan.

切る	殺す	死ぬ	選ぶ	読む	買う	動く	急ぐ	持つ

Ichidan verbs always end in る

食べる	負ける	変える

Japanese verb conjugation likes to pile words together, and you end up with long strings of verbs like 見られたくなかった. In future lessons, we start learning the logic behind these long piles of conjugations. It will become easier and easier to break them down the longer you get exposed to the language so don’t worry about it.

This lesson is just establishing the basics needed to understand what we're going to look at in later lessons.

Possession and attributes with の

の is a particle. It's a possessive marker and an attributive marker. "Attributive" here means that something is an attribute of something else, like an attribute in a video game, like the "flame" in "flame sword". The relationship is always straightforward.

私のネコ
My cat

君のX
Your X.

ネコの先
Ahead of the cat

男の子
Boy (metaphorically, male child)

If you get lost, the easiest way to remember の is: It's like "of", but it applies backwards.

夜の人
Person of the night

Sometimes "of" gets confusing, and you have to remember the idea of "attribute".

夜の海   
The night sea

海の夜   
Night on the sea (NOT "night of the sea")

の is literally the single most common word in all of japanese, so make sure you remember it well!

私の子供のネコが多い  
My child's cats are many. (My kid has a lot of cats.)

Moving things with に, へ, and から

These particles mainly deal with location. から indicates the starting point of an action, and へ and に indicate the ending point or direction of an action.

から is the same general "from" you see in english, even when it is abstract.

学校から私に家へ手紙を送る 
He will send me home a letter from school.

The English translation doesn't even have any marking on three of the nouns. Particles make things easier, at least for a language learner.

The subject was dropped in the Japanese version of this sentence. The subject can be dropped in Japanese if it's understood or not important. A lot of example sentences will have a lack of a clear pronoun, so our translations will just add a random one for the sake of making them readable. Remember that just because an example translation may say “he” instead of “she” it doesn’t mean that it is clear in Japanese.

へ translates well as "to" or "toward" in most situations, including abstract ones.

東京へ行く
Go towards Tokyo / Headed for Tokyo

In many sentences, へ and に can be interchangeable with very minimal difference in meaning. へ can sometimes sound a bit more formal or literary.

に can mark an indirect object or a location of existence.

An indirect object is something relevant to or affected by a verb, but not part of the verb's core meaning. This overlaps with へ a little, but へ cares more about motion and “towardsness”, and に cares more about the end objective.

学校に来る
Come to school.

Location of existence is also straightforward

東京に暮らす
To live in Tokyo

Be aware that there are other particles we can use to mark the location of actions. The kind of particle that is the most appropriate to use depends on the specific verb used in the sentence. While there are general rules or explanations that can help you remember these situations, the only real way to know for sure is through experience. You’ll have to remember which verb goes with which particle as it often will feel rather arbitrary.

The idea of "indirect object" used by に can show up in places that would look like direct objects in English.

研究者になる   
To become a researcher.

ここに来る   
He comes here.

In this way, に becomes a general "first option" for things that look like direct objects but cannot take を for the equivalent verb in Japanese. There are other particles that also do this job, which we will cover later. For certain meanings, you can only use a given particle, not an arbitrary one.

These particles can be used in other ways too, you should learn them as you come across them as we won't list all of them.

This is a good time to take notice that particles can attach to phrases as well, not just words. This applies to every particle we've learned so far.

私の家から来る   
It comes from my house

Here から attaches to 私の家 which can be considered a single phrase (“my house”).

Negated verbs

When you want to turn an ichidan verb into a negative verb, you just cut off the る at the end of the simple tense and add ない.

For godan verbs, you turn the ending "u" sound into an "a" sound, with one exception.

These examples are for illustration. You should not memorize them, just understand them for now and move on.

Ichidan: Drop る, add ない

Godan: Replace "u" with "a", then add ない

For godan verbs ending in う, the negative uses わない, not あない. This is that one exception mentioned earlier.

い-adjectives

Japanese has two main categories of adjectives. Don't worry, they are not as complicated as the ones for verbs. It’s actually quite straightforward.

These two categories are い-adjectives (形容詞) and な-adjectives (形容動詞).

い-adjectives act similar to verbs and can conjugate. な-adjectives on the other hand act like nouns (and they often can also be used as nouns). We'll cover な-adjectives later.

Here's an example of an い-adjective in practice.

赤い火
Red fire

The reason why い-adjectives are similar to verbs is because they can conjugate.

To say some noun is/has some quality using い-adjectives, you can just make an “A is B” type of sentence with the adjective directly like this:

火が赤い
The fire is red.

You must not add だ after it:

*火が赤いだ

This is very wrong and not worth providing a translation.

However, attaching です is okay here, but it doesn’t have the role of a copula in this usage. It just adds politeness and doesn’t carry any meaning whatsoever. This is the first major way that だ and です are different. When it's not attached to a noun, です is just a politeness marker.

火が赤い
The fire is red

火が赤いです
The fire is red (polite)

Beyond です, There can also be some other constructions that put だ after an い-adjective, but they are specific set expressions. Don't be surprised if you see them, but don't worry about it now.

Like with verbs, you can also conjugate い-adjectives. You can replace い with かった or くない to attach a past or negative conjugation:

火が赤かった
The fire was red.

火が赤くない
The fire is not red.

The adjective いい is an exception and it becomes よい -> よかった / よくない.

Since the ない in verbs also behaves as an い-adjective, you can conjugate it like one and continue the chain of conjugations that makes it possible to build the long strings of verbs we mentioned earlier.

見る
to see (ichidan plain form)

見ない
to not see (negative)

見なかった
did not see (negative, past)

Adjectives can be turned into abstract nouns by replacing the い with さ. There are more ways to do this, but さ is by far the most common.

大きい
large/big (adj)

大きさ
size/largeness (noun)

Past verbs

You form the past tense of a verb by attaching た or だ to a specific "stem".

Stems are important for godan verbs because godan verbs have many stems and often present irregularities.

90% of the time, you only use three stems. Here's an example:

Note: “a” form and “i” form aren’t real terms, it’s just an example to show the sound vowel these stem end as. We don’t need to know the Japanese linguistic names of these forms now, but you can look them up if you want.

Here's an example of these stems in use:

殺す
He kills

殺さない
He doesn't kill

殺した
He killed

That's right. Basic stuff like tense and negation uses only three stems. There are more stems, but they show up less often. We'll cover them later.

With that out of the way, we can introduce the past tense properly. We've seen the past tense forms of だ and です already, which are だった and でした. We also saw 殺した in the stem example above.

You'd be right to assume that the た is what makes it the past tense. The hard part is that the stem for the past tense of godan verbs isn't as regular as the stem for the negative form. It depends on the original syllable ending of the plain form. Here are all possibilities:

切る	殺す	死ぬ	選ぶ	読む	買う	動く	急ぐ	持つ
切った	殺した	死んだ	選んだ	読んだ	買った	動いた	急いだ	持った

Don't memorize this table. There's a rule for this: replace the "u" vowel with an "i" vowel, so you get like 切り, 殺し, etc. then attach the た after it. However, there are exceptions to this “rule”:

• if the verb ends with ぬ or a voiced kana (ぶ or ぐ) た becomes だ.
• if the verb ends with う, つ, or る the “i” stem becomes っ and doubles the following た sound (買う -> 買った, etc)
• if the verb ends with ぬ, ぶ or む, the “i” stem gets “slurred” and it becomes ん (選ぶ -> 選んだ)

There are also a couple of verbs with a funny irregular conjugation, for example 問う becomes 問うた. There are only a few of them that behave like this (乞う -> 乞うた being another one). You don’t need to memorize these, just be aware they exist, they are not very common.

Japanese speakers don't go through this mental process whenever they conjugate something. This process is like trivia to them. At the very least, if you do a little reading and listening in Japanese, you will be able to recognize the past tense at a glance. Exposure is more powerful than memorization.

The past tense of ichidan verbs is easy. Just replace the る with a た.

We will learn another use of this stem, in Lesson 12.

The rules of verb conjugations are more complicated than this, but take this one step at a time.

The て form

Don't worry if this lesson seems hard. We're just covering fundamentals, you're not expected to internalize the ideas here yet.

There is a verb form that ends in て. This verb form is used in two main ways:

• to chain actions or statements together
• to provide additional nuance to an action or statement

The て form is made by replacing the past tense た with て. Keep in mind that this isn't some kind of secondary past tense. The て form does not encode any notion of “tense” in its form. It doesn’t tell us anything about the sentence being past or present.

殺して　切って　買って　死んで　食べて

The godan verb 行く is an exception and its て form is 行って.

Adjectives can also have a て form. This is done by turning the い into くて.

赤い	赤くて
怖い	怖くて
面白い	面白くて
いい	よくて

The adjective いい is an exception and it becomes よくて.

This also works for negative conjugations, which is also how we apply て form to negative verbs.

赤くない	赤くなくて
食べない	食べなくて

We saw “A is B” and “A does B” type of sentences. With the introduction of the て form we will see our first example of “A does B and C” type of sentences. At the very basic syntax level, AてB means “To do A, and then do B”. It can mark either a temporal sequence, or a cause -> consequence relationship. It allows us to make longer sentences with multiple verbs in sequence.

物分りがよくて助かる   
You have a good understanding and it helps

彼女の目を見て、頷いた  
I looked her in the eyes and I nodded

Note: whether or not you use a comma after て does not matter. Commas in general have no grammatical role in Japanese, but they can make things easier to parse.

In the first example, the statement 物分りがよくて is followed by the statement 助かる. 助かる is not modifying よくて. Instead, the first statement is setting up the context for the second statement. It is common in Japanese to build an initial statement, followed by a て conjugation, and then an additional statement that describes your subjective feeling or emotion about that first statement. You feel relieved (助かる) because the other person has the quality of 物分りがいい.

The second example just strings the statements together as a simple sequence of actions. As mentioned earlier, the て form does not provide any notion of past or present tense. The tense is instead conveyed by the last verb in the sequence. 頷いた in the second example is in past form, so we can assume that the entire statement is in past tense.

Sometimes the て form lets a verb act as a topic. In this way, it can look like a noun. It's not really a noun, it just looks like one in situations like this. In this usage it is often followed by the は particle.

食べてはいい  
It's good to eat.

The て form of ない, なくて, often carries a "didn't X, so Y" nuance. But this is just a nuance. It's just one of the possible uses of it.

早く起きなくて仕事に遅れた  
I didn't get up early, and I was late for work. (reason)

The て form as auxiliary and giving verbs

On top of just connecting two statements into a single sentence, the て form can also act as an auxiliary. When <verb1>て<verb2> is used this way, the second verb modifies the core meaning of the first. Usually the second verb has an abstract and often purely grammatical meaning.

殺してあげる
I’ll do you the favor of killing you

In this example, the verb あげる attaches to the て form of 殺す. あげる has a few meanings, two of them being "to raise (something)" and “to give (something to someone)”. Because it is used in this pattern, it assumes the meaning of "giving" the action 殺す to someone else. It can have the nuance of doing it as some kind of favor, sometimes ironically or sarcastically (as in the example above).

助けてもらう
To receive help (directed towards yourself)

Here, the "receive" word, もらう, attaches to 助ける. This addition of てもらう can have a nuance of gratefulness as the subject receives some kind of favor. However, this is not only what is happening here. The phrase 私が助ける means that subject 私 is the one that performs the action of “saving/helping” (someone else). However, the phrase 私が助けてもらう marks the subject 私 as the one that receives the action of being helped. The XてY pattern isn't just attaching the verb Y to an earlier statement, it can make a whole new verb phrase, with different grammar and meaning.

This usage of て auxiliary can be very powerful, and it is at the core of what makes some of these grammatical structures so typically Japanese that are often hard to translate into English.

On top of てあげる and てもらう there is also a third verb, てくれる which completes the giving/receiving “circle”:

<verb>てあげる
You/Someone does the favor of <verb> towards someone else

<verb>てもらう
You receive the favor of <verb> from someone else

<verb>てくれる
Someone else does the favor of <verb> towards you

It is important to keep in mind the difference between the “outside” group and the “inside” group, but it is too complicated to go over it right now. Just remember that てもらう is almost always used with you as the subject, and you receive a favor from someone else. Likewise, in the opposite direction, てくれる has someone else as subject and they do a favor towards you the recipient. Note the particles in the following examples:

父に(私が)助けてもらった
(I) was saved by my father

父が(私に)助けてくれた
My father saved (me)

The parts in parenthesis are often dropped or removed because just by using てくれる and てもらう, Japanese can imply a “direction” of the verb which makes it obvious whether the action is towards you or not. In English we say “He saved me” but in Japanese we say “彼が助けてくれた”. The “me” part is implied in てくれる.

We will later see other usages of て auxiliary to add a sense of directionality to phrases like ていく and てくる.

For verbs and adjectives in ない form, there is another version of the て form that is often used with an “auxiliary” nuance. In this form, rather than なくて, it becomes ないで instead.

食べないで待つ
To wait while not eating

Here, 食べないで is the て auxiliary of 食べない and can be used to describe the following verb (待つ). It acts somewhat adverbially to add additional meaning and context to the last verb in the chain. We will see more examples of ないで in later lessons, just be aware it exists for now.

Soft requests with てください and the imperative form

The て form can also be used to make a simple command or order. When we add ください after the て form, we are politely asking someone to do something (for us), effectively giving them an order. This usage is so common that the ください part can be completely omitted and still maintain an imperative sense to the statement. Dropping ください makes it more casual and can come across as more direct (potentially rude).

野菜を食べてください
Please eat your veggies

食べて、少年
Eat, boy.

見て！
Look!

It can also be used with negative verbs in the form of ないでください to express a soft prohibition or negative request.

バカなことを言わないでください
Don’t say stupid things, please

食べないで
Please don't eat.

ください can also be used as standalone verb, rather than an auxiliary. In this case, it means “please give me”. You can use it to order stuff in shops.

肉まんをください
Please give me a nikuman

It is worth noting there are other ways to make orders and imperative commands in Japanese. The て(ください) form is rather weak and fairly soft order. It’s closer to a polite request rather than a straight up command.

This brings us to the fourth common verb stem, the imperative form. This is a "true" imperative form, rather than the simple request made by using てください alone. Be aware that the imperative form often sounds rude.

You make the imperative of ichidan verbs with ろ, and of godan verbs by replacing the u sound with the e sound.

見ろ！
Look!

殺せ
Kill!

切れ
Cut!

買え
Buy!

There is also an alternative imperative for ichidan verbs, but you can ignore it for now. It sounds archaic and pompous. Just remember that it exists:

食べよ！
Eat!

The で particle, では and じゃ

Normally, で marks the "circumstance" or "means" behind an action, or the “location” where such action occurs.

剣で出来ている
It is made of swords

刀で殺した
He killed with a katana

バスで来た
I came by bus

学校で働く
To work in a school

で originally comes from contracting the compound particle にて. You may still see にて in old fashioned or formal writing/announcements.

で can also be used like it's the て form of だ. In this usage, it assumes the typical conjunction usage of て form as with verbs or adjectives, except it works with nouns or noun-like words.

中学生で一人暮らしはできない
To be a middle schooler and live alone is not possible

Sometimes distinguishing between the case marker で particle (location, means, etc) and the てform of だ conjunction is not always clear. What matters, however, is that the meaning of the sentence should still be clear. You shouldn’t worry about pinpointing the exact dictionary definition for each particle you see used in a sentence. If you understand the meaning, that’s good enough.

This brings us to では. では is a compound particle. The は here can be considered the topic marker, but the meaning of では together is more than just the sum of its parts. では often marks the circumstances or condition of another state.

公園ではアイスが売られる
Ice cream is sold at the park.

This also extends to the state of being, as we already saw in lesson 1.

私は学生ではない
I am not a student.

As a reminder, では is often contracted as じゃ. Some dialects may use different copulas from だ. Examples are や (often used in kansai dialect) and じゃ (often used by old men in fictional media to sound old fashioned). This じゃ is a contraction of something other than では. The usual では is not a copula.

ペンじゃ
Tis a pen. (it's a pen.)

Getting detailed with relative clauses

Relative clauses are statements that are embedded inside other statements. If we take a structure like “A is B”, a relative clause allows us to expand it as much as we want with something like “A is (B that is C)” and then “A is (B that is (C that does D))”. In English, this may look unwieldy, but in Japanese it is very common.

In this lesson we're going to cover relative clauses that modify nouns. Relative clauses that modify nouns are things like “I used to live in” in the sentence "That is the house I used to live in".

To make a verb modify a noun directly, you just attach the verb right before the noun. This means that Japanese verbs can basically act like adjectives.

食べる人
Person that eats

私にくれる人
People that give to me

The simple tense of だ cannot make a relative clause because it cannot be connected directly to the left of a noun, but its past tense can.

*必要だ食べ物です
(ungrammatical)

好きだった食べ物
Food that I liked

In rare circumstances, that rule can be broken, but it's a real rule, not a fake one. Don't make relative clauses that end with だ.

In short relative clauses, の can be used to replace the が particle used to mark the subject. This の as a replacement of が can only happen in relative clauses, as long as the を particle is not being used in that very same clause.

君の来た場所
The place where you came (from)

私の食べたラーメン
The ramen I ate

私がラーメンを食べたレストラン
The restaurant I ate ramen at

In the last example, の cannot replace が as 私のラーメンを食べたレストラン would assume a very different, borderline nonsensical, meaning (“The restaurant that ate my ramen”).

な-adjectives

Now let's look at な-adjectives, named after the な that comes after them. な adjectives are simple words that look like nouns, but they can be used attributively to describe other nouns by connecting them with the な “particle”.

バカな子供
Stupid kid

大好きな人
Beloved person

Now that we learned what relative clauses are, it’s good to learn that the term “attributely” basically means “as a relative clause”.

At the end of sentences, な-adjectives can look like nouns, and just like nouns they can end sentences with だ

この部屋は静かだ
This room is quiet.

The な “suffix” is basically what allows な adjectives to work attributively in a sentence. You might have noticed this <adj>な<noun> structure looks very similar to <noun>の<noun> structure we’ve already seen in Lesson 5. な can even be used this way with some normal nouns, not just な-adjectives, but it is a bit of an exceptional usage with some specific nuance that we don’t need to worry about now.

魔法の世界
World of magic

魔法な世界
Magic-ish world

魔法 is a noun (magic), and does not normally take な like this, but some authors might write something like this to give it a special vibe.

Going back to normal な-adjectives, they should be considered separate from nouns, and dictionaries do keep them as such. They clearly distinguish nouns (名詞) and な-adjective (形容動詞) as different categories. While a lot, if not most, of な-adjectives are also nouns, some of them aren’t, and cannot be used that way. For example, you cannot attach case marking particles directly to them.

元気な人
An energetic person

元気が出る
To feel energized (lit. energy comes out)

静かな人
A quiet person

*静かが？？？
(ungrammatical sentence fragment)

In the example above, 元気 works both as a な-adjective and as a noun, but 静か can only work as a な-adjective.

Some resources also recognize so-called の-adjectives, which are just nouns that are a bit special because they can turn into having an adjective-like meaning using の instead of な.

英語の本
English-language books. (NOT "books of english")

普通の人
A normal person.

Irregular and する verbs

Now that we've covered the most common verb stems, we can cover the irregular verbs. Japanese only has two major irregular verbs, but they're very common. Their conjugations are completely irregular. Note that there are some other exceptions and corner cases in some other verbs (we’ve already seen 問うた), but these two are completely different and live in an entire class of their own.

する
to do

来る
to come

Their conjugations are as such

する		to do
した		did
しない		to not do
せよ or しろ	do!

くる		to come
きた		came
こない		to not come
こい		come!

With する, we can introduce a new class of verbs: the する verbs. In Japanese you can turn a lot of nouns into verbs by simply adding する after them. This is not allowed with all nouns, but a large part of words will show up in the dictionary as “する verb” too. This is especially common between two-kanji words that originate from Chinese.

料理
cuisine

料理する 
to cook (lit: “to do cuisine”)

They mostly mean the same as their non-verb construction, but grammatically the noun becomes for all intents and purposes a real verb.

Consider these sentences

日本語を勉強する
to study Japanese

日本語の勉強をする
to study Japanese (lit: “to do the study of Japanese”)

*日本語を勉強をする  
(ungrammatical nonsense)

The first treats 勉強 as a verb, and 日本語を as its object. The second considers 勉強 a noun (modified by 日本語) and it is the object of the individual verb する. The third sentence is ungrammatical, because it tries to force two disconnected objects and simply doesn’t work.

While we can translate the first and second sentences in two slightly different ways to accentuate the difference between 勉強する and 勉強をする, realistically the meaning is pretty much the same.

Basic politeness and ます form

Let's now talk about politeness. In Japanese, the polite tone of the language presents itself as a specific grammatical feature. This means that when you are speaking politely, the way you build sentences, conjugations, and even the words you choose will differ from when you’re speaking casually. There are various degrees of politeness and we will only cover the basic stuff here. You can look at the intermission if you want to know more, but it is entirely optional.

Basic polite verbs are constructed with the auxiliary verb ます attached to a stem (which is often called the “ます-stem”). For ichidan verbs, ます attaches to the part of the verb without る. For godan verbs, change the u to an i, then attach ます.

In lesson 9, we mentioned that the past tense of godan verbs comes from the "i" stem. While for some verbs (死ぬ -> 死んだ) this stem shows an exception in past form, this does not happen with ます.

Here's a comparison between the past tense and ます form of each type of godan verbs. Don't memorize this.

Since ます itself is an auxiliary verb that ends like any other verb, it can also be conjugated further to provide tense, negativity, etc:

ません doesn't have a past tense of its own. To use the past tense with ません, you attach でした, the past tense of です.

In modern Japanese, there is another way to make the polite negative past tense of verbs, and that is to just add です after the non-polite negative past tense:

死ななかった		->	 死ななかったです  
Did not die (casual)	->	 Did not die (polite)

This usage of です instead of ます can be seen as slightly less polite but has become more and more common to the point where it’s completely normal to use and the distinction between the two is so incredibly nuanced it is impossible to explain. You can just consider them to be the same.

The same applies for ないです vs ません as in 食べないです vs 食べません

Existence with いる and ある, with である and っす

The verbs いる and ある express existence. The difference between the two is whether the subject is something “animated” or not. An animal and a person take いる, but a table and a sandwich take ある. Something like a car, which moves but isn't alive, can sometimes use one or the other depending on context and focus of the sentence. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is about “living” or not. It is not. For example typhoons take いる because they move on their own. Robots in sci-fi movies also take いる. Sometimes people can take ある as well, especially in old language and set phrases.

家には猫がいる
In the house there is a cat.

店がある
There is a shop.

Sometimes, when people want to state that they have/own something, they use ある or いる. They technically don't mean "to have", but it’s an equivalent translation to how we use “have/possess” in English. It's just a wording difference.

デスクがある
There's a desk / I have a desk

私の家には猫がいる
I have a cat.

いる conjugates as an ichidan verb.

ある conjugates as a godan verb, but its negative conjugation is irregular.

店はない
There is no store.

Now that we know ある, we can bring up the origin of だ: である. である is a formal version of だ (to be). Unlike だ and です, である can be used with relative clauses that attach to nouns:

*友達だ人  
(ungrammatical nonsense)

友達である人
Person who is a friend (formal)

You might remember that we used ではない as the negative of だ. ではない is basically である's negative.

である
であった
で(は)ない

Note: でない also exists, but for some quirk of the language the addition of は has become the standard/expected version when negating である. There is no real reason for it other than it is how it is. You might still see でない especially in more formal written media or certain set phrases.

Finally, we come to っす, a slurred version of です used in casual speech. It's less formal than です, but serves the same grammatical roles. It is often used in contexts where you want to be casual but still need to stick to the です/ます social expectations. Kinda like going to work dressed business casual.

いいです -> いいっす
犬ですか -> 犬っすか

っす is also sometimes used to contract ございます, a keigo version of ある. Again, removing the formality from it, but keeping the politeness.

おはようございます -> おはようっす -> おっす (yes, really)

Part 2: Getting Going

We're making great progress. Don't stop here, keep going. Okay, actually you can take a little break, you deserve it. Maybe read an intermission or two, if you want.

But don't stop. We still got a lot to cover.

Questions with か

Questions in are formed with tone of voice, and they sometimes end with か or の also depending on the politeness level.

This lesson will cover yes/no questions with か. We'll cover "wh"-questions and の questions later.

When reading written language, where tone does not come across, writers often indicate the presence of a question with a question mark ？ just like in English. However, be aware that this is not required as questions can also end with just か (or even の) and a period 。 without the question mark. Japanese does not have the same punctuation rules as English.

暑い？
Is it hot? (casual)

暑いですか。
Is it hot? (polite)

When a question is formed with か, the か just goes at the end of the sentence. However, か to ask questions is normally reserved for the polite form (ですか？ and ますか？). In casual form you don’t usually ask questions ending with か as it can sound very stark and too direct. People just use a rising tone of voice like in the example above.

There are situations where か can be used in casual form too, but they are usually rhetorical questions, or have a specific type of nuance that is hard to explain in a beginner guide. Just don’t fall for the trap of asking every question by just slapping か at the end, at least until you really know what you’re doing.

This last piece of advice however does not apply to fictional language used in media and is one of the most common sources of disconnect between real life Japanese and fictional Japanese (anime, manga, books, etc).

お前は警察か
Are you with the police? (sounds aggressive, fictional language)

As shown above, to ask a か question in polite language, just add か after です/ます

彼は学生ですか。
Is he a student?

古いですか
Is it old?

食べますか
Will you eat?

There are some set phrases and expressions that may use か to ask what seems to be rhetorical questions, but they aren’t actually questions. For example:

あ、そっか。
Ah, I see.

そっか is a casual slurring of そうか, literally “Is that so?”

Questions with の and explanatory のだ

Another question particle similar to か is の. Questions asked with の carry a connotation that is quite different from that of those asked with か. We will explain the nuance implication later, let’s focus on the structure first.

To ask questions with の, in casual form you just add の at the end of verbs and い-adjectives, and なの after nouns and な-adjectives (without だ). The question mark is optional.

In polite form, we just add ですか after the の, even if it’s a verb sentence. This is commonly slurred in speech as んですか instead of のですか

の can also be used to end statements, rather than questions. In this usage, the intonation should make it clear it’s not a question, but also the structure is slightly different.

To make の statements, in casual Japanese, you apply the same rule as for の questions, but instead end with のだ (or んだ):

学生なんだ
It is a student

普通なんだ
It is normal

寒いんだ
It is cold

魚を食べるんだ
I eat fish

And in polite form it’s the same as with のですか questions, just get rid of the か after です.

学生なんです

普通なんです

寒いんです

魚を食べるんです

Ending statements with だ can sound stark and often people tend to soften the tone adding よ or ね after んだ in casual statements. We’ll see よ and ね sentence ending particles in a later section.

You can also end の statements with の directly, without だ, but it comes across as feminine so be careful.

Let’s talk now about the nuance these の questions and statements give.

At a surface level, they look similar to their no-の counterparts, but the presence of の adds some kind of “explanatory” or “inquisitive” tone to them.

When you ask a question with の？ or んですか？ you are adding some implication that you expect the other person to provide an explanation, excuse, or reasoning for what you are asking them. You usually ask such questions when you are seeking clarification about something.

メアリーさんは学生なんですか？
Is it that Mary is a student?

You may ask this when you come to the conclusion that Mary might be a student due to circumstantial evidence that might have transpired from a conversation you were having but you aren’t certain about. You are seeking some confirmation.

猫が好きなんですか？
Is it so that you like cats?

You may ask this as you see someone playing happily with cats and are seeking some confirmation.

To make it even clearer, let’s compare these two sentences

何をしてる？
What are you doing? 

何をしてるの？
Wtf are you doing??

Note: the translation is just to provide some kind of tone, don’t think too much about it.

You can imagine the first to be used when asking your friend over the phone what they are up to, just cause you’re curious and are looking for a topic of conversation. However, the second one sounds more inquisitive, maybe even aggressive, and you can imagine using it if you see someone breaking into your car as you catch him red-handed. Like “Dude, wtf are you doing?”. You are expecting, even demanding, some explanation.

In a similar way, when we make statements with an explanatory nuance, we use んだ. Just like questions with の？ are seeking clarification, statements with んだ are providing an explanation or additional information that the speaker wants to make known to the listener.

There are a few usages that are common with んだ but we won’t go over all of them here as it is a very nuanced topic that is hard to explain and beyond the scope of a beginner guide. You will see them used a lot through immersion and exposure. Just be aware of this basic difference:

私は日本人です
I am Japanese

私は日本人なんです
Actually, I am Japanese (You didn’t know this, but I am Japanese)

The former sounds like a simple statement, matter of fact. You are stating something about yourself. The latter, on the other hand, sounds like you are explaining something or trying to clarify a situation. Its specific meaning depends on the context, however the nuance that comes across is that you feel like you need to provide an explanation or clarification by stating that fact.

It is common to answer questions asked with の with statements that end in のだ.

Note: Sometimes you may see の questions that end with のだ instead, often with a ？ at the end and the tone will make it clear it’s a question. There is no big difference from a normal の question but it sounds stronger and potentially more aggressive: 何してるんだ？！

Getting more with も and と

も is an inclusion marker. You can think of it like "too" or "also". Sometimes "even".

も is a particle that, similar to は, goes together with other already-existing particles. When も is used to mark something that would be normally marked by が or を, the particle is dropped and only も is left. With other particles, you just attach も after the original particle.

私も行く
I'll go, too (in addition to other people)

魚も食べたい
I want to also eat fish (in addition to something else)

学校にも行く
I also go to school (I go to other places too, but also school)

も can be used with negative statements. Normally, it includes the given noun in the set of things that the negative statement is true for, but sometimes it does weird things because negation changes how logical inclusion/exclusion works.

僕も食べない
I won't eat, either. (in addition to other people)

The particle と is also used to provide some “inclusion”, but it works very differently from も. It may look similar at an English translation level, but don’t be fooled. They are nothing alike.

と normally makes a list of things.

ジムとメアリーは来ない
Jim and Mary won't come.

と can also be used to mark someone the subject does an action “with”. Do not confuse this with で which might seem similar: the distinction is that と is usually used for people (who you do something with), while で is used for tools and things (what you do something with).

私はヤンと勉強する
I study with Yan.

ペンで書く
To write with a pen (lit: “by pen”)

Sometimes で and と may seem interchangeable, but the nuance is a bit different. Compare the following:

みんなと遊ぶ
To play with everyone

みんなで遊ぶ
To play (together) with everyone

In English, the translation is effectively the same, but と in the first sentence implies the subject is playing with everyone as an additional group of people (so it’s subject + everyone else). In the second sentence, however, the subject is part of the group, and they are playing as everyone together (“everyone” includes the subject). It’s a very subtle nuance but it’s good to be aware of it.

Enduring actions and state with ている and てある

Let’s look at ている and てある now. They make use of いる/ある as auxiliary verbs.

ている indicates an enduring action or state. For a lot of verbs, this means progressive or continuous (enduring action), but for others, it means the result of an action remains in a certain condition (enduring state).

食べている 
I'm eating. (enduring action)

死んでいる
He's dead. (enduring state)

The い in ている is commonly dropped in conversation, both in writing and in speech. This includes ます form to (as てます).

食べてる
I'm eating.

ておる is a formal variant of ている. おる and いる have mostly the same meaning. ておる can be spoken as とる.

何を言っておるのだ。
What are you saying

てある is about something being in an enduring state resulting from someone’s action. てある always expresses a resulting state, never an action.

晩ご飯はもう作ってある
Dinner has already been made

てある can turn the direct object and into a subject. This means that the verb's normal "logical object" gets marked by が or は (or unmarked), like dinner in the example above. However, because Japanese is linguistically weird, sometimes を can be used, too.

Finally, it expresses a state, not an action, so てある should not be considered "the passive" version of the verb. Japanese has a real passive that we'll cover soon.

Demonstratives with こそあど words

Demonstratives are words that mean things like "this", "that", etc.

Japanese is different from English on this front in two ways. First, its demonstratives are much more regular, and second, its demonstratives map to three "locations" instead of two. This is easier shown than explained, so let’s look at examples:

これ
this (something that is near the speaker)

それ
that (something that is near the listener)

あれ
that over there (something that is distant from both speaker and listener)

どれ
which 

これはペンです
This is a pen

それは猫ですか？
Is that a cat? (the cat is close to the listener)

あれは何？
What is that? (pointing at something away from both you and the listener)

どれがいい？  
Which is good?

The above four words are "demonstrative pronouns". Two of them translate into English as "that", but they have different connotations in Japanese. それ is for things that are near the listener. あれ is for things that are far from both the speaker and the listener.

In case you hadn’t noticed the pattern, as this lesson title points out, we sometimes call them all together こそあど because they differ between them only by the first kana syllable.

Even though the split between the two "that" exists, the way these words are used is very similar to how they are used in English.

There is another group of very similar こそあど demonstratives that grammatically work differently, but when translated into English they are hard to explain, so let’s look at examples first:

この<noun>
this <noun>

その<noun>
that <noun>

あの<noun>
that <noun> over there

どの<noun>
which <noun>

These words cannot exist standalone, and they must attach to the noun that comes after them. The meaning is the same as the other group, but their usage is slightly different.

Imagine you are holding a book and you want to say “This is a book”. “Book” is the focus of the sentence, so you would say これは本です. You are simply stating “this = book” using a copula. However, if you want to say something about this book, you would instead say この本は面白いです. This book is interesting. “This” and “book” become a single unit. In English both “This is a book” and “This book is interesting” use the same “this” word, but in Japanese one uses これ and the other uses この.

The same applies for all the other こそあど words with の.

There are many other words that fall into the こそあど type of structure. We won’t cover all of them here, but they are usually fairly regular insofar as they all follow the rule:

こ = close to the speaker  
そ = close to the listener  
あ = far from both  
ど = question word

あ is the only row that has slightly irregular pronunciation, but you’ll know when you come across them. Here are some examples:

Note: The こちら group can also be used as a polite way to refer to people in a polite setting, because it adds indirectness. On the other hand, the こいつ group can often sound rude so don’t call people こいつ.

Just like in English, physical distance is not the only determiner for these words. They can also be used to refer to something that is distant in time. They can even be affected by the degree of familiarity on the topic between the speaker and the listener. Something mentioned earlier in a conversation might be referred to as あの<thing>, but something that has just been mentioned is more likely to be その<thing> instead. Just like in English we sometimes don’t know if we should say “this” or “that”, even in Japanese people don’t always agree so the distinction is not always strict in these situations.

Passive form and transitive pairs

Passive verbs exist to turn the object of a verb into the subject. Unlike てある, passives describe the action as it happens, rather than making a statement about an enduring state left by the result of that action.

A simple example of a passive sentence in English would be “The cake is eaten by me”. The active version would be “I eat the cake”. In the passive version, the cake becomes the subject, as the action of eating is seen from its perspective.

Godan and ichidan verbs form the passive in different ways. Godan verbs take the negative stem and replace ない with れる, the passive suffix. Ichidan verbs take the stem and add られる.

殺された人間の死体
The dead bodies of people who were killed.

魚が食べられた
The fish was eaten.

The person who performs an action is the "agent". If you want to mention the agent of a passive verb, you use に or によって, but for certain verbs から is acceptable too. There are some rules for when you should use に or によって, but you don’t need to look them up or memorize them now. Just recognize the pattern when you see it.

魚が猫に食べられた
The fish was eaten by a cat.

In grammar study, there's the concept of verbal "transitivity", which basically defines whether a verb accepts a direct object or not. As we know from Lesson 3, the direct object is marked by を, while the subject is marked by が.

彼を教えた
I taught him. (transitive)

彼が死ぬ
He dies. (intransitive)

Note: do not fall for the trap of believing that if a sentence uses が it is intransitive, and if it uses を it is transitive. Transitive verbs still have a subject. A sentence like 私が魚を食べる still shows 食べる as a transitive verb despite the が being there.

"Transitive pairs" are pairs of japanese verbs that represent the same type of action, but one is transitive, and the other is not.

In English transitive/intransitive pairs are very rare (raise/rise is a commonly mentioned one), because in English the same verb can often show both transitive and intransitive usages: “I blew up a car” (transitive action) vs “A car blew up” (intransitive action)

It is important to remember the distinction between an intransitive verb and a transitive verb conjugated passively. An intransitive verb is still describing an action performed actively by a subject, while a transitive verb turned passive describes an action that the subject receives passively by the influence of someone or something else.

Potenial form and できる

The potential form exists so that people can say that something "can be done". For godan verbs, the u is replaced with an e, then added る. So "u" -> "eru". For ichidan verbs, it is identical to the passive conjugation. Yes, that is confusing. It’s so confusing that sometimes you might come across sentences where it’s unclear/intentionally ambiguous whether or not an ichidan verb is used in passive or potential form. You just have to vibe with it.

食べられる (or 食べれる (!))
Can eat

殺せる
Can kill

死ねる
Can die

飲める
Can drink

As you have probably noticed, 食べれる is listed as an acceptable variant of 食べられる with a big ! next to it. It’s common in spoken/colloquial Japanese to shorten ichidan verbs in potential form by removing the ら syllable (this is called ら抜き). It is not “proper” and should not be done in formal situations or in written form, but it is quite common in casual spoken language. It cannot be done with every ichidan verb, but there are no clear rules about which do or do not allow it. It’s up to personal preference, so don’t try to learn this rule. Just be aware it exists and learn to recognize it.

For the irregular verb する, we use the alternative verb できる as its potential variant. This is an exception, so it just needs to be learned as such.

昨日は勉強できなかった
I could not study yesterday

To make the potential/passive duality even more confusing, we need to talk about a special quirk that potential verbs carry in Japanese that English does not have.

When it comes to potential forms, the notion of a “subject” and “object” in transitive verbs can become grammatically unclear. Let’s look at an example:

私はピザを食べる
I eat pizza (not potential, standard form)

私はピザが食べられる
私にピザが食べられる
私はピザを食べられる
I can eat pizza (potential, standard form)

What is going on here? All three of those options are valid and mean mostly the same thing. Also, depending on the context and surrounding phrases, the は in those examples can be が too (yes, you can even have 私がピザが食べられる, a double が sentence).

All you need to remember is that with potential verbs, が can be used to also mark the object of the action, not only the subject. And in those sentences, the subject can sometimes be marked by に. Some people consider the usage of を like in the example above to be improper, however it is incredibly subjective and you will see it so often that considering it improper is just for old men yelling at clouds. The を version tends to be more common in relative clauses or very long and complicated sentences.

Expressing volition and desire with たい and ほしい

In this lesson, we're learning three ways we can express desire or intent in Japanese.

The "volitional" form, おう/よう, says that you want to or will do something, or invites volition in other people like "let's X". It's also used in compound constructions about volitional action. The volitional form of godan verbs is -ou, and the volitional form of ichidan verbs is よう. It's pronounced with a "long o", not お plus う.

行こう
Let's head out.

行こうか
How about we go?

食べようと思う
I think I'll eat.

Note: we will learn this usage of と with 思う in a later section, don’t worry too much about it now.

The volitional form of です is でしょう and of だ is だろう. These usually "invite an idea", like conjecture or possibility.

いいでしょう
It's good, don't you think? 

犬だろうと、猫だろうと、なんでも問題ありません   
Perhaps dogs, perhaps cats; whichever it is, there’s no problem. 

The second way to express desire is たい. たい is an い-adjective-like auxiliary that attaches the same way as ます.

死にたい
I want to die.

アイスが食べたい
I want to eat ice cream.

In the last example sentence, を is acceptable too. In respect to が and を, たい works similarly to potential verbs. Either が or を can be used to mark the object/target of desire, although different verbs may have specific preferences about one or the other. Don’t try to memorize this, just know it exists and is valid Japanese.

The last way to express wanting is with 欲しい, an い-adjective.

アイスがほしい
I want ice cream

Note: Similarly to たい, ほしい also falls into the category of quirky adjectives where が marks the object of desire, and can sometimes be replaced with を. However, unlike with たい, をほしい is very much less proper and less common. You might still see it, but a lot of people will consider it awkward Japanese. It’s best to avoid using it.

Another quirk of ほしい is that it can be used as auxiliary after the て form of a verb to issue soft commands or requests.

その話はやめてほしい
I want you to stop talking about that

It can sound a bit more impersonal and indirect than てください, and it can also be used to provide general advice about what you’d like someone to do from your point of view. The important thing to remember is that you use がほしい to talk about yourself, and てほしい to talk about others.

Saying "if" and "when" with the four conditionals

Japanese has many ways to say “if” and provide conditional statements. In this lesson we will introduce the four main ones. Don’t try to memorize this completely, just learn to recognize each of them when you encounter them and know they roughly mean "if" or "when".

The order of conditionals in Japanese states first the condition, and then the resulting action. Conditionals are one way we can connect two “A does B” type sentences in a structure like “If A does B, then C does D”. Obviously, structures like “If A is B, then C does D” or any other combinations are acceptable too.

The first conditional we will see is the ば form which turns verbs into a condition. The conjugation is formed by changing the u at the end of a verb into an e, then adding ば. Basically, for godan verbs, you replace the u with an e, and for ichidan verbs, you add れ after the stem.

見れば死ぬ
If you look you'll die.

こいつを殺せばいいの？
Is it okay if I kill this dude?

ば implies that the condition is sufficient for the result to come to happen. It’s a true logical “if”. This can even be used for certain requests, like "If you're late, just call and I'll handle everything". However, ば doesn't imply that the condition will eventually happen, so it can’t be used in things like "When you come around, come see me". In narration, it can sometimes mean "X happened, and then Y", but this non-conditional usage is fairly limited and not as common outside of literary works.

For the ば conditional of the copula だ, we need to “expand” it into である and conjugate that instead.

普通の人であれば、その命令に逆らうことはできないだろう
If he were a normal person, he surely would not be able to go against that order.

For い adjectives we turn the い into ければ:

良ければ教えてください。
If that is okay (with you), please teach me.

If only it were that simple, with just one conditional, we'd be finished already. But the fun part of Japanese is that there are a lot of different ways to build conditional sentences, and they all have different usages and nuances that are incredibly hard to explain in terms of English grammar. We will now see と, たら, and なら. They all fall into a spectrum of “if” and “when” and sometimes even “as” (like in “As I woke up, I heard a weird sound outside”).

と is used to link two events where one is a natural consequence of the other, in a strongly sequential way.

あんまり食べると太りますよ
If you eat too much, you’ll get fat

This と is also commonly used in narration to describe a series of events that happen one after the other. In this usage, it makes it sound like the reader has no control over the events and they are just a spectator to a show where these events happen “naturally” in front of them.

少し歩くと、開けた場所に出た。
After walking for a while, they came to an open area.

Similar to と, たら is also used to connect two events, and it can either assume a purely hypothetical or a strictly temporal meaning. It can be “If A happens, then B” but also “As A happened, B happened right after”. To more easily make out this distinction, it’s common for phrases in the hypothetical sense to use もし as an opening word to clue in the listener.

もし敵がいたら私が斬り捨てます
In the event that there are enemies, I will cut them down (hypothetical)

朝起きたら、食堂には誰もいなかった。
As I woke up in the morning, there was no one in the cafeteria.

The “as” usage of たら is common when recounting past "one off” events that happened to you, often unexpectedly.

There is another special usage of たら, usually directly after names, in the form of ったら. This ったら has a completely different meaning and just acts as a particle that marks an exclamation of exasperation. It is not a conditional.

もう、お父さんったら、しっかりしなさい！
Come on, dad, get your shit together!

たら and ば in the hypothetical sense can often be interchangeable. There’s even regional variation where people from one area of Japan might prefer one or the other and vice versa. This is why you shouldn’t ask questions like “why did this personr use たら instead of ば?”. Just accept it.

The last conditional for this lesson is なら. なら is a strictly hypothetical conditional. It implies that the condition is assumed true in the hypothetical world where the statement takes place. This means that when you say X なら Y, the meaning is close to something like “If we consider the case that X is true, then Y”, but it doesn't sound as verbose as it does in English. It's a very common way to phrase things.

行きたいなら一緒に行こう
If it’s the case that you want to go, let’s go together

Due to this specific nuance of なら, it is the only conditional where the second clause can happen before the preceding one. と, たら, and ば cannot do this.

乗るなら飲まないで
If you will be driving, do not drink.

The act of 飲む would have to happen before the condition of 乗る, hence the speaker assumes 乗る will happen in the hypothetical world where the advice (飲まないで) takes place.

Sometimes, なら can show up as ならば. The meaning is the same, but it feels more literary.

With verbs and い adjectives, sometimes の can be placed between the verb and なら. This can give some additional nuance (similar to the explanatory の in のだ) but you don't have to remember this. Just remember that the version with の can sound more literary and formal.

そんなに知りたいのなら、教えてあげましょう。
Since you want to know so badly, I shall tell you.

そんなに知りたいなら教えてやる。
Since you want to know so badly, I’ll tell you

Verbs review

We've finally run into all of the basic stems of godan verbs, so this is a good time to review what we've learned. Please don't try to memorize this. Knowing that these ideas exist is enough. If your eyes gloss over, relax. If you can't do it, move on.

The names given are just simple descriptions/reminders of the form, they aren’t proper grammatical names. In parenthesis, the Japanese name and its respective proper terminology will be presented for those who are curious, but you don’t need to remember it. If a stem or form is referred to in the rest of the guide, it will be with the plain English descriptor, not the Japanese name.

Remember that with godan verbs, there are special rules to conjugate past and て forms. For example for the k row き becomes い:

書いて
書いた

For ichidan verbs, the stem stays the same so it’s much easier, just replace the る:

食べ(ない) negative form
食べ(ます) masu form
食べる plain/dictionary form
食べ(られる/れる) potential form
食べ(れば) conditional/ば form
食べ(ろ) imperative form
食べ(よう) volitional form
食べ(て) て form
食べ(た) past form

And the two irregular verbs する and くる:

Also, as a reminder, the godan verb 行く conjugates irregularly as 行って/行った for て form and past tense.

ABSOLUTE TERRITORY

At this point, you should begin reading, skimming later lessons to see what the guide has to say about the unfamiliar grammar you encounter. The remainder of this guide is half guidance, half reference.

Language learning takes time, even if you put in a lot of effort. You have to apply yourself, but you won't see big results until you do it for a long enough time. Think about what that means. The very first time you start reading, everything is going to feel really weird and you're not going to "get it". That's okay. It'd be weird if you didn't react that way. But reading (or using other forms of input, including listening) is the only way to make that weird feeling go away.

And this goes for every little part of reading. New words, grammar patterns, ways that Japanese people communicate, and figures of speech. They all feel weird and alien at first and don’t make sense. But eventually, once you are exposed to them enough, you’ll kinda start to “get it”. That's why you've gotta start reading. You have to start the process of getting your brain familiarized with it in ways that we don't consciously understand yet.

This guide can't teach you Japanese. Nobody can teach you Japanese. The only way to learn Japanese is to understand messages that are written or said in Japanese. But why is the focus on "understanding messages" in particular?

Two reasons:

• If something is way out of your depth, you won't learn anything from it. If you don't understand what's being said, you won't learn anything new about the vocabulary and grammar used in it.
• It's totally possible to consume something and understand its individual parts but have no idea what it "means". You can break 食べてきました down into its individual parts, and that helps you see the syntax, but unless you understand what it's saying, not just how it's said, you won't acquire anything from the message. Understanding the content or meaning of the message itself is a precondition to learning from it.

A lot of people start learning a language and focus on picking apart messages one word or phrase at a time, like it's a puzzle. This can make things seem less confusing, but if you insist on doing it all the time, you'll miss the big picture and fail to comprehend a lot of messages.

This is made worse when you think that your grammar guide teaches you everything that you need to know. In reality, guides can't teach you all the high level stuff unless you're some kind of linguistics savant.

Once you figure out "Huh, 食べてきました seems to be used in <situation X> a lot", that's when it's time to break it down and try to see what individual parts contribute, comparing them to similar phrases you already know. If you always start with the individual parts, you'll miss the general idea, and fail to associate the phrase with the situation.

That association is what lets your brain acquire the language and get a fluent handle on it. Noticing what things mean when they're used is the thing that you need to do if you want to learn japanese. No textbook, not even the best one, and no grammar guide, not even this one, can give you that. It's all up to you.

Don't think. Feel.

Part 3: Growing Our Sentences

A sentence is like a little garden, full of beautiful flowers. We want pretty flowers, full of colors and beauty. Or some of you might want to grow tomatoes too.

The point is, we need to venture further and start spicing up our sentences. Curate this beautiful Japanese garden.

Sentence ending particles with ね, な, よ, ぜ, ぞ, わ, さ

Some particles can go at the end of sentences and are used to show how the speaker feels or provide additional emotional impact. The descriptions given in this lesson are not literal. They're just a way to represent the underlying tone. This is an incredibly nuanced topic and it can only be acquired through a lot of exposure.

Providing translations for the example sentences in this section is going to be very hard, because English does not use this type of language and it is often lost in (natural) translation, so be aware of that.

The sentence ending particle ね feels as though the speaker wants the listener to agree. ね can also come at the beginning of a sentence, and it serves as a way to get attention from the listener. In this usage, especially when duplicated (ね、ね！) it can come across as feminine/cute.

いい天気だね
It's good weather (don’t you agree?)

ねーねー、おにーちゃん。
Hey, hey, big brother

な(ぁ) indicates self-directed emphasis. You often use it when you feel emotionally moved or relieved by something (often positive, but can be used negatively too). Note that there's a different sentence-ender that can conflict with this one, and in such places, this one is usually written with the vowel elongated. In spoken language the tone is different.

いいなぁ
Ahh, that’s nice

よ feels as though the speaker wants to notify the listener about some piece of information. The listener may already know about it, but the speaker emphasizes that this information might be new or interpreted in a new way and wants the listener to be aware of that.

覚えていてくれて嬉しいよ
You remembered that, and that makes me happy.

To show a simple difference in usage between よ and ね:

これ、美味しいね
これ、美味しいよ
This tastes good

Both of these sentences mean the same thing at the core, but ね can only be used if both speaker and listener have tasted the food, while よ is used when the speaker wants the listener (who hasn’t tasted the food) to know that they think food is good.

ぞ indicates assertion, it can sound a bit coarse, but it's not necessarily impolite. It can feel slightly masculine, but in certain expressions and contexts women use it too.

誰もいないぞ
Dude, there’s no one here

行くぞ！
Here I go! (speaking about himself, to himself)

ぜ is like ぞ but feels more lighthearted. In fact, it can turn otherwise assertive statements into suggestions. It’s not used often in real life and can sound comical if used incorrectly.

さっさと行こうぜ
Let’s hurry up (and go)

The ending particle わ has three main uses:

• Feminine emphasis similar to よ, this is almost exclusively found in fictional media and is often used to represent some stereotypical お嬢様 characters, especially in the form of ですわ
• Neutral casual usage, this is pretty much standard across all Japan and mostly gender neutral. It has the nuance of a self-reflected よ. You use it emphatically when you are stating to yourself some subjective feeling you just now came to realize.
• Kansai dialect わ. Not much needs to be said since we’re not studying dialects in this guide, but you might come across it if you consume content with kansai speech which is very common.

People often confuse the feminine わ with the neutral わ, but they are very different. In real life it is extremely common for guys to use わ so don’t be fooled by it.

そんなことはどうでもいいですわ
I don’t care about that (feminine)

そと出た瞬間、終わったわ
As soon as I went out, it was already over (for me) 
強風オールバック/白上フブキ(cover)

There are many more particles like these and covering all of them is an unrealistic expectation. You will come across them as you consume Japanese media, just don’t be surprised when you do. Remember that for the most part they don’t change the meaning of sentences, they just add vibes.

A lot of these particles can also be chained together (よ + ね -> よね) and there is an implicit order of precedence (ねよ is wrong, よね is correct). We won’t be covering them but just be aware that they assume a meaning that means more than just the sum of its parts. All vibes, of course.

One last note to mention is the role of だ after nouns and な-adjectives at the end of sentences before attaching particles. The “proper” way in Japanese is to use だ (or です) if the sentence ends with a noun or な-adjective, and then add the particle right after:

元気だよ
すてきだね

However, it is grammatically acceptable to remove this だ and attach the particle directly to the noun. This can often feel feminine and the usage in real life is much more limited than in fictional media.

あなたはいい人ね。
それはこっちのセリフよ。

Quotes with と, って, and という

There are two basic types of relative clause. The first is the kind that modifies a noun, which we already learned in Lesson 14. The second is an embedded clause, often called a “quote”, like the underlined part of "He said that the war would end soon".

って and と, called quotation markers, often assume the role of marking such embedded clauses.

いいと思う 
I think it's fine.

見えると聞いた
I heard that it's visible.

怖くないと言った
I said I’m not scared

In English we distinguish between direct and indirect quotes through punctuation. For example:

“I will eat the cake,” he said. (direct quote)  
He said he would eat the cake. (indirect quote)

The same concept does not apply to Japanese where the distinction between a direct and indirect quote is more blurry. While quotation markers (like 「　」) exist and can help identify direct quotes, they aren’t required and you will see both direct and indirect quote show up “freely” in text just marked by a simple って or と.

The embedded clause inside quotes needs to be a “complete” statement, so if the quote ends with a な-adjective or noun, it needs to end with だ. There are some exceptions and usages that may drop this rule, but in the majority of situations you need to make sure だ is there or the sentence will sound wrong.

優しい人だと思う  
I think he’s a kind person

When it comes to quotes, って is essentially a colloquial version of と.

ダメだって言ったでしょ！
I said no, didn’t I?

何だって？
What did you say?

As you can see from the second example, the verb (“said”, “thought”, etc) can be often dropped if it’s obvious from context and tone.

In some usages って can also take the role of topic, similar to は. In these cases it’s not really a quote. It's just an alternative topic marker.

田中さんっていい人だね   
Tanaka-san is a good person 

The construction という (often slurred as っていう or even っつう) is so commonly used that it has acquired additional meanings on top of its literal “I/they said”.

It can be used to “glue” together pieces of sentences in a manner that makes them flow better and feel less awkward. It is hard to provide a comprehensive explanation for all these cases, but you will see it often enough that it’s better to acquire a “feel” for it via exposure instead. Sometimes the という does not add any meaning at all, so don’t try to put it into English if you can’t.

It can be used to provide a definition or describe a quality. This usage is similar to である but has a slightly different nuance.

研究者という人間  
The people that are (identified as) researchers  

研究者である人間  
The people that are researchers

It can also be used to provide emphasis by repetition in some set expressions:

今日という今日
(On) this very day

木という木
Every single tree

Adverbs

Adverbs are words that describe verbs, adjectives, and even other adverbs. They provide additional information like the manner in which an action is performed. In English, the "liberally" in "Please add sugar liberally" is an adverb.

Japanese has "true" adverbs (副詞) that can be used with no special particle or marker and can be placed (almost) anywhere in a sentence.

まったく意味がわからない
I really don’t get it

全然ダメだった
It was totally no use

These two examples use “true” adverbs. If we make the first sentence 意味がまったくわからない nothing will change. These words may sometimes resemble nouns, but the key difference is that they are not marked by a particle. Sometimes they also might work as nouns too. Special words like counter words are also adverbs. We’ll read more about counters in a later lesson.

In addition to these “true” adverbs, there are also other types that use special conjugations or particles.

と-adverbs are words that take と to become adverbs.

自然と殺す
Kill naturally/spontaneously/by nature

次々と出てきます
They are showing up one after the other.

Likewise, に-adverbs are words that take に instead.

自由に勉強する
Study freely

本当にいいですか？
Is it really okay?

に-adverbs are usually originally nouns or な-adjectives. For the latter, you just turn the な into に.

自然な言い方
Natural manner of speaking

自然に言う
To say naturally

You may have noticed from the previous example that the な adjective 自然 can work as both と and に adverb. This is not uncommon as words can have multiple roles and uses. In this case there is a slight nuance difference that is hard to explain. Just remember that と often comes across as more formal or literary compared to に.

A lot of expressions that textbooks consider “grammar points” are just nouns or noun phrases with に added as adverb marker to provide additional meanings.

Like な adjectives turn into に adverbs, い-adjectives can also turn into adverbs by replacing the い with く.

早く起きる
Get up early

Some と adverbs can take the verb する to turn into verbs that describe a state of being. This usage is often idiomatic and limited to specific conjugations (like した,している, etc).

車内は広々としていた。
The inside of the car was spacious

Asking kindly with なさい and prohibition with な

なさい asks someone to do something. It feels as though the asker expects the listener to do the action, but it's still a kind request. It has a feeling of indirectness/softness and can be often seen as feminine although it’s still fairly gender neutral. The speaker is usually a higher rank than the listener, and it is common among teachers and mothers when telling off kids. You can also find it in common set expressions like おやすみなさい, in which case there’s no extra nuance attached.

聞きなさい
Please listen.

食べなさい 
Please eat.

Finally, we get to な used to indicate prohibition. It attaches to the end of a statement without ます and without past tense. This sentence-ender can be confused with the な sentence ending particle mentioned in Lesson 29. Context and tone will tell you which is which. They are very different.

来るな！
Stay away! (Don't come!)

Note: The さい part in なさい is also commonly dropped. You can easily distinguish it from the prohibition な because it attaches to the masu stem of the verb:

聞きな
Please listen

聞くな!
Don't listen!

Question words: なに, だれ, どれ, いつ, etc

These are called interrogatives. They're used in order to ask wh-questions. They sometimes show up also as parts of larger grammatical constructs or set expressions.

There are many other question words, they all work similarly so we won’t be listing all of them. If you recall the lesson on こそあど words, the ど part of the こそあど set refers to these words.

When asking questions, one thing to keep in mind is to never mark these words with the particle は. The only exception is some set expressions like 何はともあれ but you can literally count these on one hand.

昨日は誰が来たの？
Who came (here) yesterday?

か, も, and でも as question word modifiers

Besides marking questions, か can also be used to turn question words into generic nouns.

Often なにか is slurred as なんか:

なんか飲む？
Do you want something to drink?

Make sure to not confuse the following two usages:

何があった？  
What happened? (lit. What was there?)

何かあった？  
Did something happen? (lit. Was something there?)

Note how with question words + か it is common to drop the が particle after them (何かが -> 何か), possibly because it is easier to pronounce.

In a similar manner, we can also use も to turn question words into "inclusive/exclusive" nouns. Think about words like “anything” or “nothing” in English.

ここは何もない  
There is nothing here

誰も知ってること  
Things that everyone/anyone knows.

いつもそんなことを考えてるの？  
Have you always been thinking about that?

There's a logical distinction between "every particular thing" and "any one particular thing". By attaching でも to some of these words, you can give them the "any" sense of "any one particular thing".

あんたは誰でも助けるの？  
Would you (really) save anyone (no matter who)?

場所はどこでもいい。  
Anywhere (no matter where) is fine

Generic nouns and nominalization with 事, 物, ところ, and の

事(こと) and 物(もの) both mean "thing". 事 is generally used for intangible things like actions or states, and 物 is generally used for tangible things like objects. Grammatically, they are nouns, so just like any other noun they can be modified by verbs and adjectives.

あ、いいこと考えた
Ah, I just thought about something good

美味しいものが食べたい
I want to eat something tasty

所(ところ) is a word that means "place". It is used in similar patterns, including ones about intangible places like moments in time or progress, and aspects of an entity. It is often contracted to とこ.

ちょうどいいところに来ました。
You came just at the right moment. (moment = “place” in time)

やれるとこまでやってみよう。
Let’s keep going as far as we can (lit. let’s do it until the moment we cannot do it)

こういうところが彼女のいいところだ。
This aspect of her is what is good (about her)

All three of these generic nouns can turn entire phrases into nouns. This lets Japanese use phrases like things without using embedded clauses. This is basically a special simplified case of the relative clauses we learned about in Lesson 14.

These generic nouns are the base of common phrases and expressions like the following:

無理をしなければ、死ぬことはないだろう。
As long as you don’t overdo it, there’s no way you will die. 

死ぬことはない is literally somehing like 'there is no “will die” event/moment'.

Another one is <verb>たことがある which literally means something like "the action of having done <verb> exists" and it means "to have done <verb> before":

それはどこかで聞いたことがある。
I have heard of that before somewhere.

こと in particular is often used to nominalize verbs. We do a similar thing in English with the ‘ing’ construction: “To play soccer” is an action, but “the act of playing soccer” is a(n abstract) thing.

In Japanese we can also use の to achieve a similar result. There are some instances where こと and の cannot replace each other, but for the most part their usage is very similar when nominalizing actions.

私は歌を歌うのが好き
I like singing songs

の can also be used as a generic noun to replace a more specific word when what we are talking about can be inferred from context. This works with both adjectives and verbs.

赤いのはいいよ
The red one is okay.

Making lists with や, とか, など, と, か, and に

List of items in Japanese are made by tagging each item with a specific "listing" particle that defines the nature of the list. There can be both exhaustive and non-exhaustive lists. An exhaustive list is just a list that states explicitly every element it is comprised of. A non-exhaustive list is a list that provides a few examples or a description of the nature of its elements, while leaving space for ambiguity and indirectness.

"I went to the mall with Paul and Frank" is an exhaustive list, while "I went to the mall with Paul, Frank, and the rest of the crew" on the other hand is a non-exhaustive list.

Depending on the nature of the list, the final element often has its listing particle dropped and replaced with the case particle that applies to the entire list.

や makes a non-exhaustive list providing a few examples of elements that correlate to a general common idea of them.

スプーンやフォークで食べること
To eat with spoons and forks (and stuff like that)

と was covered as a side-note before, but here we'll cover it explicitly and compare it to や. と makes a "generic" exhaustive list. It counts every element in the list.

リンゴと魚とタイヤキ(と)を食べた
I ate taiyaki, fish, and apples.

As already mentioned, the last と is optional and usually dropped.

か can be used to provide alternatives. It is closer to “or” than “and” although the distinction is sometimes blurry.

スプーンかフォークで食べる。
To eat with a spoon or a fork.

とか makes a "vague" list. It's vague, and therefore non-exhaustive, but each item is its own. The items aren't necessarily considered to share a common property.

スプーンとかフォークで食べること
To eat with a spoon or fork (or something).

It can also be used to make things vague with just one element:

例えばデスクトップパソコンとか。
For example, (something like a) desktop PC...

To the surprise of no one, とか is basically like と + か. It can also be used to list verbs, often to provide alternative choices. This is a distinctive feature that doesn't exist for the other listing particles in this lesson.

戦えるとか戦えないとか、そういう問題じゃないんだ。
The problem isn't whether you can fight or not.

もしかして、付き合ってるとか？
Are you perhaps dating? (or something like that)

If the list is too long (more than 2-3 elements), it’s common to use commas to separate the elements in the middle without using particles.

など is not technically a listing particle, but rather some filler particle that sounds like using "etc" or “and such” in English. It implies the notion of a list of elements open to more similar stuff. Its meaning is similar to using a single や or とか to state that more examples are implied but not directly stated.

完璧な人間など、存在しない。
Things such as a perfect human don't exist.

These listing particles are also commonly used together, especially with など. The pattern Xや、Y、Zなど is incredibly common, like in the following sentence:

剣や斧、槍、弓など、様々な武器が置かれている。  
Swords, axes, spears, bows, and such a multitude of weapons were on display.

There is another listing particle that is sometimes overlooked: に. This particle is used to list things that come together in a set, or that the speaker is listing one-by-one as some form of chain of thought or active recollection.

サンドイッチにミルクにコーヒー。
Sandwiches... milk... and then coffee.

Adversatives with が, けど, しかし, and ても/でも

Unrelated to the subject marker が, the conjunction が states that, even though the former statement is true, the latter statement is also true. With が, both statements are independent clauses. Often, but not always, the second statement is in contrast with the first statement. This is commonly translated as “but” or “although”, but there are cases where it’s simply just an “and” and there is no contrast at all.

少し早いですが、おめでとうございます。
It is a bit early but, congratulations

が attaches after a complete sentence, meaning after nouns and な adjectives it requires だ (or です). ですが is common in speech and everyday polite language, but だが sounds too stiff and it’s almost exclusively left to written or very formal language.

Same as が, there is also the conjunction けど. Their usage and meaning can be considered pretty much the same. Just like with が, both ですけど and だけど exist and are very common in conversational tone in real life too. けど comes across as less formal than が.

しばらく考えてみたけど、何も思い浮かばなかった。
I tried thinking about it for a bit but I couldn’t come up with anything.

けど and が both cover a formality/politeness space that can feel very nuanced, so here’s a few rules of thumb. These aren’t actual rules, just general advice:

• If the entire sentence is in plain form, use (だ)けど
• If it’s conversational language, don’t use (だ)が
• If the entire sentence is in polite form, use ですが
• Ending a statement with polite form but using けど in the middle is common, but can come across as unnatural if the politeness level isn’t appropriate

A very common usage of が/けど is to introduce something as a topic in an indirect manner. In this usage it does not have a nuance of adversative (“but”). It is simply introducing something before talking about it. It is common to see this usage with the explanatory の particle like なんだけど or なんですが:

「もしもし、ネミアちゃん？　俺だけど、どうしたの？」
(on the phone) “Hello, Nemia? It’s me, what happened?”

This usage is very common when easing the listener into a request or question you have for them:

一つお願いがあるんですが、よろしいでしょうか？
I have one request... would that be okay?

This type of phrase is so common that in many situations the speaker doesn’t even need to provide an explanation after the んですが/んだけど, to the point where the second half of the sentence can be completely dropped.

すいません、本を探しているんですが
(In a store) I’m sorry, I’m looking for a book... (could you help me?)

けど can also show up as けれど and けれども. They are mostly the same, but the longer it is, the more formal it sounds.

しかし is an interjection. It sounds formal. English speakers tend to overuse this because it resembles how we use “but” at the beginning of sentences in our language but in Japanese it is not that common.

しかし、知らなかった。
However, I did not know.

ても is a combination of the て form and も. It works as a conjunction stating that the statement after it is true despite the statement before it. This is like an adversative, but it's not always one.

そんな事言わなくてもわかっているんだろ？
Even if I don't tell you that, you understand right?

There is also でも that can be used to add an adversative "but" meaning at the beginning of a new sentence.

でも、あなたは分かっているでしょ？
But you get that, don't you?

Concurrence with ながら, あいだ, うちに, and つつ

This lesson focuses on how to state that something happens while something else is going on.

ながら states that two actions are concurrently true as they happen at the same time. The subject of the two actions must be the same. Like “I watch TV while eating chips” is okay, but “I watch TV while my brother plays video games” is not. ながら attaches to the masu stem of the verb.

ながら is in the form of AながらB, where the action described by B is the “primary” action and the action described by A is a “secondary” action that is done at the same time. In English this nuance does not easily show up, so let’s look at two examples instead:

画面を見ながら勉強しよう
Let’s study while looking at the screen.

そこで勉強しながら、爺ちゃんの帰りを待つ
I waited for grandpa to come home while studying there

In the first first example, the main action is to study and that is what the speaker wants to do, while in the second example the speaker is focused on the action of waiting, and while doing so they study.

つつ is another auxiliary that can be used more or less the same as ながら, except it sounds more formal and is almost only relegated to literary sentences.

彼女はそう言いつつ、苦笑いを浮かべる。
While she was saying that, she showed a bitter smile.

つつある is a special usage of つつ that implies an action is happening continuously, like a more formal ている.

時代は変わりつつあります。  
The ages are continuously changing.

However, unlike ている it cannot be used for verbs that describe states to mean "to be in a state of":

男はもう死につつある。
The man was already dying.

男はもう、死んでいる。
The man was already dead.

間/あいだ(に) and うちに are two other ways to state that something happens while something else is happening, however the usage is more general and they have a broader scope than ながら and つつ.

間/あいだ says that two events happen the same span of time in its entirety. This places constraints on what sorts of statements it accepts. 間 itself acts like a noun.

私がお風呂に入っている間、何をしているのですか？
What were you doing the entire time I was in the bath?

A間にB says that B starts and ends within the time A takes place.

俺が意識を失っている間に何があったのだろうか？
I wonder if something happened while I was out unconscious? 

うちに says that an event happens while the statement before うちに remains true.

そんな事を考えているうちに、完全に日が沈んでしまった。
While I was thinking about that stuff, the sun set completely. 

It often has a nuance that the event marked by うちに is limited in time and will eventually finish.

蜘蛛がいないうちに救出するか
Are you going to rescue them while the spiders are away?

This is often used to give recommendations or suggestions like “before X happens, we should do Y”

冷めないうちに食べましょう。
Let’s eat before it gets cold. (lit. let’s eat while it is not cold)

Reasoning with から そして ので で

から, not just a case particle(“from”), it also shows up as a conjunction where the thing after から is "because of" the thing before から.

You can distinguish between the particle から and the conjunction から because the particle only comes after nouns and the conjunction から after completed clauses. This means to attach the “because of” から to nouns and な adjectives, you must add だ (or です), and it can also go directly after verbs and い adjectives (which the particle から cannot do).

暑いからプールに行きたいです
It’s hot, so I want to go to the pool

みんないい人だから、きっと気にいる
They are all good people, so they will certainly be delighted.

から can come at the beginning of a sentence in the form of だから. In this usage it can either be emphasis, or give an explanation for a previous statement.

だから、そんなこと言わないでください。
I'm telling you, please don't say that!

そして is an interjection that essentially gives a sense of finality as the last element in a list of sequential statements (like “and in the end…”) or a conclusionary reason (“and so...”. It can sound formal.

そして、ついにその日が来た。
And in the end, that day finally came.

そして、ありがとうございました。
And so, thank you.

ので acts like から. After nouns and な adjectives it becomes なので or ですので.

There are some nuance differences between から and ので but the gist is that から sounds more like a subjective opinion and ので feels more objective. For this reason, in polite contexts から can come across as pushy and ので is often preferred.

外は暑いので気をつけてください
It’s hot outside, so please be careful.

大事なことなので、二回言いました。
It was an important thing, so I said it twice.

で can be used as a conjunction similar to "so". It establishes a weak cause -> effect relationship. で goes after nouns and な adjectives. For verbs and い adjectives they get conjugated in て form to achieve the same result.

突然のことで、すぐに理解できなかった
It was sudden, so I couldn’t immediately understand it.

This usage of で can also show up at the beginning of a statement to continue a previous statement, sometimes as それで:

それで、これからどうするの？  
So, what are you going to do next?

Comparing things with より and の方が

より is used to compare two things in a direct way, like the "than" in "I'm smarter than you". When you use より, you do not need to use a "more" word, unlike English which needs to say "more X than Y" or "Xer than Y". Sometimes より can be followed by も for emphasis.

彼は誰よりも強いよ
He is stronger than anyone

In this given example, 誰より without も can come across as weird and is less common.

より is also used in constructions about relative position (in space or time), similar to から.

南より迫る
To approach from the south

新世界より
From the New World

This usage of より is common in written letters, where より marks the sender and へ the recipient.

If you want to list both sides of a comparison, you mark the lower bound with より and the upper bound with 方. 方 is a noun that reads ほう (don't be tricked by the かた reading!), and as per every noun, it attaches to other nouns with の and can take particles after it. In case of a comparison, the 方 "side" is usually marked by が whether or not it is the subject of the action.

メリットよりもデメリットの方が大きい
The cons are bigger than the pros.

The より side can be dropped if implied.

私は一人で行動する方が性に合っている。
It is more natural for me to act on my own.

Literally, this 方 usage marks a "side" of the comparison. XよりYの方がZ can be understood as "starting from the X side, the Y side is more Z" where X is the lower bound and Y the upper.

There are a few idiomatic expressions that make use of 方が.

<verb>方がいい means "it is better to do <verb>". It is common in this construction to use the verb in past tense if the statement comes from a position of personal advice rather than a general truth.

やめた方がいいと思います
I think it'd be better for you to stop.

少し余裕がある方がいいだろう。
It's better to have a bit of extra leeway I guess.

When いい is conjugated in past tense like 方がよかった it implies some regret or reprimand about an action that should or shouldn't have been done in the past.

真面目に戦った方がよかったのだろうか。
Would it have been better if I had fought seriously?

Counting things

Let’s now talk about counting things. When you want to state an amount or quantity, you usually cannot have “free” numbers in the middle of a sentence. You need to pair them with a special word that describes what type of quantity you are defining. These special words are called “counters” and there are a lot of them. Some are incredibly specific and change depending on the thing you are counting, but some are more generic and the rules aren't as strict as you might be led to believe.

It's like how in English you can’t say “I eat 3 breads”, and you have to say “I eat 3 loaves of bread” or “3 slices of bread” instead. Japanese works like this for most countable things.

The most common counter word is つ, however つ is also special because it does not go above 9. If you need to count more than 9 “generic” things, you need to use another counter (often 個, but you can’t always use 個 for everything).

As you can see, the pronunciation of these words is incredibly annoying to learn. Don’t try to memorize all this, just be aware it exists and get exposed to it via immersion. The same applies for a lot of other counter words like days (日), months (月) , years (年), age (際/才), etc. The readings are incredibly irregular.

One interesting exception, on the topic of age, is that ages are sometimes reported directly in numbers without a counter:

ボクはまだ12ですよっ！
I’m still only 12!

If you remember from a previous lesson, counters work like adverbs and can go almost anywhere in a sentence like adverbs do. Also, just like adverbs, counters cannot be marked by case particles. Even though they look like nouns, they aren’t nouns.

二人、兄弟がいる
兄弟が二人いる
I have two brothers

These two sentences mean the same thing (but the latter is more common)

Linking conjunctions のに, ように, ために, せいで, and おかげで

のに is related to ので, but it works in the opposite direction. While ので means "because of X, Y", のに means "despite X, Y". Like ので, this is more "objective" than other adversatives. のに also loves being attached to the end of sentences as an emphasis marker of disappointment or discontentment.

もう会えないと思ってたのに、また会うことができた。
Even though I thought I would never meet you again, we could meet again.

Just like ので, のに needs な after nouns and な adjectives

少し考えれば、当たり前のことなのに。
It's such an obvious thing if you think about it a bit.. (sounds disappointed)

ように essentially means "so as to", as in "walk so as to keep your back hidden". This treads a fine line between "for the purpose of" and "in such a way as".

足音を立てないように歩く
Walk in such a way as to not make noise.

If it helps, you can think of ように as a noun (よう = "manner") turned into adverb by に. The clause that qualifies よう becomes "adverbial" to the main verb.

ために literally uses the noun ため "purpose" plus に to make a conjunction.

それを確かめるために、彼は走っていた。  
He was running, in order to confirm that. 

In many situations, ために and ように are interchangeable with the meaning of “for the purpose of”, but not always.

ために can also be used to mean "for the sake of" rather than "for the purpose of". The nuance is different in English but in Japanese it is not always obvious. に can also be dropped.

あなたのためなら、なんでもするよ。
For you, I would do anything.

せい is a noun meaning "fault" used to indicate cause/blame/reason. It usually implies that the effect is undesirable.

お前のせいで俺はこんなことになったんだよ！
It is because of you that I became like this!

The opposite of せいで is おかげで, which implies a thankful feeling.

俺は、お前のおかげで救われたんだ。
Thanks to you, I was saved.

Likeness and hearsay with みたい, らしい, ぽい, and そう

There are many ways in Japanese to say "X resembles Y" or "X looks like Y".

One of them, is the な adjective suffix みたい. It looks like the たい form of 見る -> 見たい, however in modern Japanese this is considered a completely separate thing and should not be confused.

みたい (it is always written in kana and should never be written as 見たい) is a な-adjective and conjugates like one. It means “seems”.

あの人、日本人みたい
That person, it seems like he’s Japanese / He seems Japanese

ヒーローみたいな人
Person that resembles a hero

While みたい is for all intents and purposes a な adjective, when used adverbially it sometimes conjugates like an い adjective. This is seen as casual/slang, but you’ll see it often enough in Japanese media that it is good to be aware of it.

子供みたいにブランコに乗っている
子供みたくブランコに乗っている
He was on the swing like a child

Both of these examples are valid, but the former is more proper.

らしい is an auxiliary adjective that attaches to nouns or verbs/adjectives and says that something factually "seems so" based on circumstance. らしい is appropriate for things that would translate to "seems X", rather than "Xish".

日本人らしい名前。
A name that seems Japanese.

You might also see らしい used to mean “I heard that”, used to convey hearsay or information obtained from third parties.

出発は明日の昼頃になるらしい。
I heard that the departure will be tomorrow at around noon.

ぽい/っぽい is a suffix い adjective that says that something subjectively "seems so" based on appearance or stereotypical properties. It translates well as "Xish" or "X-like". It sounds casual.

今、僕の名前、女っぽいって思ったでしょ？
You just thought my name sounded feminine-ish, right? (lit: “female-ish” or “woman-ish”)

There are two separate constructions of the auxiliary suffix そう.

The first one attaches to the masu stem of a verb or adjective, and it means “seems like”. It is used to describe things from a subjective impression or perspective, often from physical appearances. そう turns whatever it attaches to into a な adjective.

おいしそうなスープです。
A delicious-looking soup.

The other そう attaches to the complete form of the word before it, so for な adjectives and nouns it becomes だそう. This usage means “I heard that” and it is similar to the hearsay usage of らしい we saw earlier. It feels a bit more formal.

2000人以上が死んだそうです。
I heard that over 2000 people died.

Wrongness with だめ, いけない, ならない, and how to say “must”

だめ is a word that means something like "no good", "useless", or "no use". It can be used to say that a statement would be bad, after connecting that previous statement with ては or conditionals like たら, etc.

あまり迷惑をかけてはダメですよ。  
Inconveniencing others too much is not good. (lit: “if you inconvenience others too much, it is not good)

日本だったらダメなんだろうけど、ここでは大丈夫みたい。  
Had it been Japan it would’ve been bad, but here it seems fine.

ならない and いけない are similar to だめ, but they feel stronger and have an implication that something is prohibited, either by someone’s decision or social expectations.

他人のものを、盗んではならない。
Stealing other people’s stuff is unacceptable. (lit: “it is unbecoming”)

All three of these “not good” groups (だめ, ならない, いけない) are often used with a negative conditional statement (〜なければならない, 〜なくてはいけない, 〜ないとダメ, and any other similar combination) to convey a meaning of “must do”. Since Aてはならない means “must not do A”, then logically (not A)てはならない means “must not not do A” hence “must do A”.

This is how you say “must do X” or “have to do X” in Japanese. It sounds like a mouthful, but you’ll get used to it in no time.

やらなければならないことはたくさんある。
There are a lot of things I must do. (lit: “things that if I don’t do it won’t be acceptable”)

なければ is commonly contracted to なきゃ and ては is commonly contracted to ちゃ (では is じゃ).

死んじゃダメ！
You must not die! (lit: “dying is not good”)

When implied by context, at the end of a statement, the part after the conditional is regularly dropped because these expressions are so incredibly common that everyone understands what comes after anyway.

冷めないうちに食べないと。
You must eat before it gets cold.

Part 4: Adding Spices and "The Rest"

七味(しちみ) is called like that because it is seven (七) spice flavors (味). It's neither six nor eight. It's exactly seven. We want to spice up our Japanese flavor, and we will do it juuuuust right. In this part we'll bring everything to a close and learn to appreciate the flavorful palate of the Japanese language.

And some of the remaining pieces too.

Listing and repeating actions with 〜たり〜たり and ては

We already saw in Lesson 36 it is possible to make non-exhaustive lists of verbs using the listing particle とか.

たり is another particle/conjugation that can be used in a similar way. It is actually more common and conversational to use it like this over とか.

The たり form of a verb is simply the past tense + り:

At the end of a list of 〜たり actions, it is natural to attach the verb する which turns the entire block of verbs into a conjugable phrase that behaves like a giant verb.

手をつないだり、抱きしめあったり、キスをしたりしたいから。
Because I want to do things like holding hands, embracing each other, and kissing.

Unlike chaining verbs using て form, たり does not assume any strict ordering or precedence of action. It simply states that any of those actions (and even other unstated ones) takes place in whatever order. AてB roughly means "Do A, then do B", while AたりBたりする means "do things like A and B".

Aside its most basic explanation, it has a few other specific idiomatic uses. It can be used to:

• soften a statement;
• add the nuance that what you're saying is meant to be surprising for the listener;
• state a common occurrence;
• state a likely possibility.

These idiomatic uses of たり sometimes overlap so it's not easy to pinpoint exactly which usage is which.

Just like other non-exhaustive listing particles, it can work with just a single element in the list.

笑ったりしてごめんなさい。
I'm sorry for laughing. 

実はそうだったりする
In fact, that's actually the case.

昔はよく一緒に遊んだりしました.
We used to play together a lot in the past.

もしかしてお金が必要だったりするのだろうか？
Is it the case that you might be needing some money maybe?

〜たり〜たり can also be used to highlight two actions that happen repeatedly in alternation. In this usage, the two actions are often natural opposites, and the する verb is not used at the end of this たり group.

大きくなったり小さくなったり。
It grew big, and then small, and then big, and then small...

The ては conjugation can also be used in a similar manner.

飲んでは笑い、笑っては飲む。
He drinks and laughs, then laughs and drinks.

"Just" with だけ, のみ, ばかり, and しか

だけ, のみ, and ばかり are variations of "just" or "only". しか is similar, but it can only be used in negative statements.

だけ means "just so", in terms of amount. It acts like a particle.

俺だけ行く
Only I will go

俺だけじゃないよ
It's not only me.

のみ is like a less colloquial だけ.

味付けは塩コショウのみ。
There is only salt&pepper as flavoring

ばかり is yet another "only" word. It can also be pronounced ばっか or ばっかり. Xばかり focuses on everything falling within the definition of X as being true, whereas だけ and のみ focus on things that fall outside of the statement being false. Think of the difference in vibes between "There is only this" and "There is nothing else".

悪いことばかりじゃないと思います。
I don’t think it’s all bad things.

分からないことばかりだった
It was all stuff I didn’t understand.

The structure <verb>てばかりいる is often used to convey a critical attitude towards someone stating they do just one thing over and over to the point where it’s detrimental.

彼は寝てばかりいる
He does nothing but sleep

ばかり can also be used with temporal statements to convey how soon or early something happened.

戦いはまだ始まったばかりだ。
The battle has only just started.

しか is used with negative statements to convey the same meaning as だけ but with the focus on everything else that is not what is being marked.

僕しかいない
There is no one else other than me here

The compound だけしか exists too. It works exactly the same as しか but has stronger emphasis.

Still, already, and yet with もう, まだ, and また

With positive statements, もう expresses "already". With negative statements, it works together with the negation to express "not anymore".

Basically, もう means that there's a change of state from the statement being false or irrelevant to the statement being true: "already" and "not anymore".

もうこんな時間だ
It’s this late! (lit. It’s already this time)

もう食べたよ
I already ate

もう食べないの？
You won’t eat anymore?

もう can also appear as an emphatic expression of frustration

もういいよ
I’ve had enough (lit. it’s already at a sufficient level)

もう！
(angry frustrated noises)

In statements about the near future, もう can mean "soon" instead. This usually goes along with an adverb expressing soonness, but sometimes it's just implied.

どうやらもう来るみたい
Well it seems like he’ll arrive soon

Another use of もう expresses "more" of an amount.

もう一杯！
One more drink!

もうちょっと
A bit more

まだ expresses the idea of "still" or "yet" and it is the opposite of もう. It's used when a state stays the same.

まだ食べるの？
Are you still eating?

まだ負けないな！
I haven’t lost yet!

まだまだ
Not yet!

まだまだ is an adverb and set expression that also works as a more emphatic まだ

もう is used for "yet" in positive questions, since もう highlights a change.

もう書きましたか？
Did you write it yet?

もう眠いの？
Are you already sleepy?

また expresses the idea of "again".

また来た
He came again.

また来ないな
Looks like he's not coming again.

Permission with いい and negative invitations with ませんか

いい just means "good" or "fine" and isn't a grammatical term in itself, but it's used often in patterns about permission. After て form it’s asking for permission to do the action marked by て. てもいい also works mostly the same and you’ll see either quite often.

食べて(も)いい？
Can I eat?
いいよ
Sure

When people use よかった they're normally expressing gladness, not goodness. よかった shouldn't be used for permission.

来てくれてよかった
I am glad you came.

When negation is involved, "permission" statements with いい often walk the line between permission and request, just like excessively polite English. When it comes to negative + ていい, both ないで(も)いい and なくて(も)いい mean roughly the same thing and are mostly interchangeable. なくて(も)いい is more common.

食べなくて(も)いいよ
It’s okay if you don’t eat

As a response, いい(です) usually assumes the meaning of rejection (like “I’m good” in English).

レジ袋ご利用ですか?
Do you need a bag?
いや、いいです
Nah, I’m good.

In a previous lesson we saw the volitional form can be used to invite/urge someone to do something with you. There is another way to ask someone if they want to do something together with you, and that is to use a question phrased in the negative. This is similar to the English “won’t you… ?”.

明日、映画を見に行かない？
Why don’t we go see a movie tomorrow?

This structure can also be used for requests that aren’t invitations.

すいません、もう一回言ってくれませんか？
I’m sorry, could you repeat that again? (lit. “won’t you say it again?”)

The many uses of とする

とする has four main uses. The first means that someone supposes/assumes something, used with statements. Think of it like "pretend that/act as though". This is easiest to see as an invitation, but can be part of a longer sentence about someone else's presumptions too.

それが本当だとすればどうなるのだろうか。
Assuming that was true, I wonder what will happen

誰かが呼びに来たとしても不思議ではない。
Even assuming someone came here to call (us?), it wouldn't be strange.

The second is a として auxiliary, with a general vague "operating as X" meaning. This is directly related to the first use, think of it like "thinking of Y as an X". In this usage it commonly goes directly after nouns.

その判断は医者として間違いではなかった。
That decision, as a doctor, was not a mistake.

The third use means that something undergoes an "experiential" state, basically used with "mimetic" words like つるつる "slick". Mimetic means words that represent sounds (onomatopoeias) or sound-like attributes.

頬がぴりっとする。
I felt a tingle on my cheek.

Lastly, とする can show up after a verb in volitional form. This can give it two separate, but often similar, meanings.

The first meaning is that of something that is "about to happen". Either as a volitional action under the control of the subject, or as something involuntary and unavoidable (like an act of nature, etc).

本部を出て行こうとした時、アルフォンスに呼ばれた。
As I was about to leave the main headquarters, I was called by Alfonse.

そんな時間も終わりを迎えようとしている。
That time was also about to reach its end.

The other meaning is closer to "attempting to do something" and can be only used for voluntary actions.

本気で僕を食べようとしているらしい。
It seems like it was seriously attempting to eat me.

When the verb is a voluntary action, sometimes the line between the "about to" and "attempt to" meaning can be ambiguous. If you think about it, if you are attempting to do something but fail because you get interrupted, you were also about to do it. So the construction can assume both meanings at the same time:

俺が再びご飯を食べようとした時、ガタッと音がする。
As I tried to eat my meal again, I heard a rattling sound.
As I was about to eat my meal again, I heard a rattling sound.

Trying stuff with てみる

The てみる auxiliary originates from the verb 見る, and can provide some insight on how to remember what it means. It roughly means "try to do something (and see how it goes)". However, when it is used with this meaning, it should never be written in kanji.

てみる indicates that the action is "tried" or being done with the intent to see what the outcome of doing so will be.

食べてみる
I'll try to eat it (and see how it goes/see if I like it/see if it’s poisoned, etc)

チョコレートケーキを作ってみました
I tried to make chocolate cake.

想像してみてください。
Please try to imagine it.

In the previous lesson, we saw another grammar point that can be translated as "to try to do": ようとする.

In Japanese, these two grammar points are very different, but when translated into English they are often a source of confusion. てみる assumes that the action is going to be done and that what matters is the outcome, while ようとする implies that the hard part (the “attempt”) is the action itself. It is often used with the assumption that the subject will not be able to “do” the action in the first place.

Consider the difference between these two sentences:

まずは一度逃げてみよう
First, let’s try escaping once.

僕は、逃げようとする彼女の手を取った。
I caught the hand of the girl who was attempting to escape.

The first sentence focuses on the fact that the speaker doesn’t know how their escape attempt will go, but they want to try and see. The second sentence stops the girl from escaping before she even begins to do so. It implies that she attempted to initiate the act of “escaping” but she was unable to follow through with it.

Thinking and feeling with と思う and と考える

The verbs 思う and 考える are both commonly translated as "to think". However, while 考える relates to a more methodical/analytical type of thinking, 思う focuses more on the (sometimes involuntary) feeling of thoughts that kinda float in someone's mind. You can think of 考える as "consider" or "evaluate", although not always as serious.

We already saw the と particle used to quote thoughts in Lesson 30. Review that lesson if you forgot it. 考える works in the same way.

何かトラブルがあったと考えるのが普通だろう。
I guess it is normal to consider that some trouble might have happened.

Focusing back on と思う, the basic usage is that of a simple thought or feeling. It normally means that the speaker thinks something.

来たと思った 
I thought he came.

This thinking is often natural and unplanned.

A quirk of the verb 思う is that when we talk about other people, the verb is usually in ている form instead. In this usage, it can imply there is some reason for us to assume something about someone else’s thoughts (maybe they voiced their opinion out loud).

彼は本気でそれが正しいと思っているのだ。
He genuinely thought that was right.

Lastly, when と思う is used with a volitional phrase, it means that the speaker is considering doing something. In this usage, it is similar to たい, but it is more concrete and focused on actual relatively short-term planned actions rather than a state of desire.

食べようと思う
I think I will eat

More questions with っけ, かな, かい, だい, じゃない, and じゃん

っけ is used when the speaker has forgotten something or is trying to recall something they once knew. It is usually, although not exclusively, used as a question directed to oneself.

なんだっけ？
What was it again?

どこに置いたっけ
Where'd I put it, again?

っけ is almost never used with non-nouns except in the past tense. When it is, other stuff (like explanatory んだ) is usually put in between.

どこにあったっけ？
Where was it, again?

こういうの何て言うんだっけ。
What was this thing called, again?

Similar to っけ, there is also かな. It is usually pronounced with a rising intonation as a question, but just like っけ it is a self-directed one. It simply means the speaker is wondering or unsure or hesitant about something, similar to "I wonder" in English. Needless to say it comes from the union of the question particle か and the sentence ending particle な.

話したいことがあるんだけど、いいかな？
I have something I need to talk to you about, I wonder if now is okay? 

It often comes after the volitional form of a verb to indicate that the speaker is about to decide to do something.

さて、本でも読もうかな
Well then, shall we read a book or something?

かい is a "friendly" question marker, especially for masculine speakers. Outside of familiar conversation, it can come across as rude/too direct. It’s not as common in real life as it is in media. In standard usage, it can only be used to ask yes/no questions.

お嬢ちゃん、大丈夫かい？
Young lady, are you alright?

Parallel to かい, there is also だい. The vibes are pretty much the same, but unlike かい, だい is used to ask questions that expect an actual answer.

君たちはこれからどうするんだい？
What are you guys going to do from now on?

じゃない can also be used to ask confirmation questions. Yes, when attached to nouns, it's identical to normal "is not". No, there's no way around it. If you are lucky, there will be a question mark after it.

いいじゃない
It's fine, isn't it?

Note how adding a copula after verbs and い adjectives is technically incorrect but this type of じゃない lives on its own and can show up after them. It’s not negating the predicate, it’s just adding a negative question nuance (“isn’t it?”) and behaves like a sentence-ending particle.

じゃん is a casual contraction of じゃない

The causative form

せる is a "causative" helper verb form. It means the action of making or letting someone do something. Yes, it's used for both forcing people and allowing people.

For godan verbs, せる attaches to the negative stem. For ichidan verbs, さ is inserted between せる and the stem:

終わらせる
To make (something) end

死なせる
To let (someone) die

食べさせる
To make (someone) eat

When we use a verb in causative form, the causer/agent (= the one that does the “forcing” or “allowing”) is usually marked by は or が. The causee/target (= the one that is “forced” or “allowed”) can be either marked with に or を. The choice between these two particles depends on the verb being used.

When we use に, the interpretation of the causative is that of “allow” rather than “force”. On the other hand, when we use を, it could be either of them.

With intransitive verbs, the target can be marked by を, but with transitive ones the target can only be marked by に. In this type of usage, with transitive verbs, it is sometimes hard to tell if the sentence means “to allow” or “to force”.

子供を外で遊ばせる。
To let the kids play outside.

子供に飲ませる酒はない。
I won't make/let a child drink alcohol.

The causative form can also be chained with the passive (せる -> せられる).

書く to write
書かせる to make (someone) write
書かせられる to be made to write (by someone)

Causative-passive sentences cannot assume the meaning of “to be allowed” but only “to be forced”.

When used with する verbs, the causative form can turn an intransitive する verb, into a transitive one (する -> させる).

シミュレーターが起動する。
The simulator starts up. (intransitive)

カメラアプリを起動させる。
I start up the camera app. (transitive)

Making and becoming with なる and する

We have already seen なる in some examples from past lessons. Let's now take a deeper look at how it works.

なる is a verb meaning something like "become" or "ending up being". In addition to just "become", it can be used for all sorts of indirect states, like a team ending up being its members, or a rumor turning out to be true.

海賊王に俺はなる！
I will become the pirate king!

1500円になります
It will be 1500 yen.

に is used as the particle to mark the noun (or thing) that the subject “becomes”. As always, the order of particles can change the emphasis, as we can see in the first example sentence above.

In reality, though, なる actually takes an adverb and not just nouns marked with に. It just happens to be that nouns (and な adjectives) can become adverbial when に is used.

We can confirm this when we try to use なる with い adjectives. To do so, we need to turn them into adverbs like this:

これからもっともっと強くなる。
From this moment on, I will become much much stronger.

Likewise for the negative (ない) forms:

食事が美味しくなくなる
The meal becomes not good

Even verbs can be paired with なる. Verbs in the negative form conjugate like い adjectives, and the same goes for verbs in たい form. Meanwhile, verbs in plain/non-negative form require an extra helper noun like よう which roughly means “in the manner of” (same よう we have already seen in Lesson 42).

たこ焼き食べたくなった。
I became to crave for takoyaki

ここで下がれば本当に道がわからなくなる。
If we go down from here, it will become impossible to find the way.

見えなかったものが見えるようになる。
The stuff that was not visible became visible

It is common for the structure ようになる to have the verb in potential form to mean “become able to do” something.

As a parallel of <adverb> + なる, we will now look at <adverb> + する.

You can consider する to be the "active" version of なる. While <adverb> + なる means "to become <adverb>", <adverb> + する means "to make (something) into <adverb>".

The sentence structure works exactly the same as なる, except we mark the thing that is being "made" with を.

みんなが目を丸くする。
Everyone stared in wonder (lit: "made their eyes a circle")

彼女は笑みを深くする。
She deepened her smile (lit: "made her smile deeper")

美味しいものは人を幸せにする。
Tasty things make people happy (lit: "turn people into happiness")

Reflexes with 自分

In English, you don't say "Jim broke Jim's watch" when there's just one Jim. You say "Jim broke his watch", or sometimes "Jim broke his own watch". You don't say "Jim hurt Jim", or "Jim hurt him", you say "Jim hurt himself".

"His own" and "himself" have the property of being "reflexive". When you need to do something reflexive in Japanese, 自分 fulfills this behavior.

自分の体を食べた
It ate its own body

自分で遊ぶ
Plays by himself

自分 can sometimes be used by some speakers as pronoun, usually first person (like 私, etc) but sometimes also as second person (お前, etc). This is a specific usage that does not mean “one’s own”. It’s just a normal pronoun. Context and experience will tell you how it’s being used.

Sometimes 自分 can be emphasized with 自身:

そこにいたのは、自分自身だった。
The one who stood there was he himself.

More negatives with なくて, ないで, ず and ずに

We briefly discussed the difference between なくて and ないで in Lesson 11. Let's dig a bit deeper into it.

When we make a verb or い adjective into the なくて form, this behaves like a usual て conjunctive form (“do X, and…”). It is common in this usage to imply some cause -> effect sequence (“I didn’t do X, and that is why Y happened”) although not strictly required.

お役に立てなくてすみません。  
I am sorry I was not helpful (lit. “I was not helpful and so I am sorry”)

We can also make the negative with ないで instead, however in contrast with なくて, this usage often implies a manner or state in which the following action is being done. You can think of the statement before ないで to become an “adverb” to the statement after it.

もしかして、食べないで待っていたのか
Perhaps… did you wait without eating?

ノックもしないで部屋に入る。
To enter the room without even knocking.

There is another way we can use なくて and ないで, and that is using the verb forms 〜ず and 〜ずに. ず is an archaic conjugation of the negative auxiliary verb ぬ, but you don’t really need to know this. Just remember that 〜ず is almost a 1:1 replacement to なくて (or in some cases なく), and 〜ずに is a replacement of ないで. In some cases, 〜ず alone (without に) can also be used as ないで (Yay, Japanese!).

お役に立てず、申し訳ございません。
I am sorry I was not helpful

何も食べずに眠ってしまった。
He fell asleep without eating anything

ず and ずに are more formal and stiff-sounding than their なくて and ないで counterparts and are mostly used in literary stuff. However you will still hear plenty of ずに in spoken language too and they show up a lot in common phrases and expressions.

Auxiliaries of regret and peace of mind with てしまう and ておく

てしまう indicates that something is "complete" or "done completely". It's also used when things "end up" in such a "complete" state, like after mistakes. A good way to remember this is to think about "it's done" and "now I've done it". It can often have a nuance of regret.

てしまう can also be ちまう or ちゃう in speech (or じゃう for voiced verb conjugations like 死んでしまう -> 死んじゃう).

私はあっという間に全部食べてしまった。
I ended up eating all of it in the blink of an eye.

私は死んでしまったみたいです。  
It looks like I died (lit: ended up dead)

Once something is done with てしまう, the implication is that it cannot be taken back.

ておく means to do something and then leave it untouched/leave it alone with the expectation that it will bear fruit in the future. This is often described as “do something in preparation” because practically speaking that’s what it often implies. It can also be used metaphorically to mean “do something and then put it out of mind”. ておく is often contracted as とく

まず最初に言っておきたいことがある。
First, there is something I need to tell you.

俺はただ知っておきたいだけなのだ。
It's just that I simply want to know it (= for my own peace of mind)

Directionality with ていく and てくる

We already touched briefly on the concept of directionality in Lesson 11 with the giving auxiliary verbs てあげる, てもらう, and てくれる. Let's now dig a bit deeper into this concept and introduce two more auxiliaries: ていく and てくる.

When not used with an auxiliary sense, Vていく and Vてくる simply mean what they spell: "To do V, and then go/come somewhere". However, when used as auxiliaries, their meaning deepens and becomes more than the sum of its parts.

Auxiliary ていく roughly means that some event is ongoing and will "keep going" in a direction away from the speaker, either in place or time (present -> future). ていく can be contracted as てく.

それはどんどんと大きくなっていく。
That keeps gradually getting larger and larger

Likewise, auxiliary てくる means that some event was ongoing and has continued approaching from away towards the speaker, either in place or time (past -> present), and might even go further.

声が背後から聞こえてくる。
I heard a voice coming from behind.

Both ていく and てくる are incredibly nuanced in usage and this lesson doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the complexity of it, especially when you throw different tenses into the mix.

Let's just look at examples and then we can move on. You will pick up some of the nuances and common phrasings with more experience.

これまで見えなかったものが見えるようになってきた。
The things that up to this point were not visible have started to become visible.

周囲が騒がしくなってきた。
The surroundings have started to become noisy.

顔色がだんだん悪くなってきている。
Her face has been progressively getting paler.

時間はあっという間に過ぎていった。
Time went by in a flash.

この世界は、少しずつ変わっていっている。
This world is continuously changing little by little.

Some verbs require to be paired with an auxiliary verb of directionality to make some of the sentences grammatical. For example the verb 引っ越す means "to move (house/residence)", but unlike English it doesn't have an actual connotation of "movement" or dynamism to it. When you want to use it in the sense of "I just moved here" and highlight a state transition, you must use an auxiliary verb of direction. Other verbs like 送る and 歩く work in a similar way.

親の都合で、この街に引っ越してきた
Because of circumstances with his parents, he moved to this town.

メールを送ってきた人物は、結局何者だったのか。
Who exactly was the person who sent the email in the end?

一人の少女がこちらに歩いてきた。
A lone girl walked towards me.

The colloquial usages of だって

Beyond the simple quote usage of (だ)って there are two more. One of them is an extension of the quote one, but the other is historically unrelated.

The exclamatory だって appears in front of a sentence and is used like an adversative interjection similar to a casual しかし or as an explanation/logical continuation from the previous sentence.

「早く宿題しなさい！」
「だって、つかれてるんだもん」
“Hurry up and do your homework!”
“But I’m tired…”

だっておかしいじゃないですか。
I mean, don’t you find it weird?

The other だって is a more casual version of も/でも when used after nouns in the meaning of “even”.

そんなことは俺だって分かっている。
Even I understand that

This だって can also replace the ても conjugation of verbs and adjectives in the form of たって. It sounds very casual.

どんなものを食べたって問題ないな
No matter what kind of thing I eat, there’s no problem.

別に強くなくたっていい。
It’s okay even if you’re not strong.

Expectation with わけ, はず, べき, ものだ, and かもしれない

わけ is a noun meaning "reason" (as in "why"). It can be used in many different set expressions. It is not possible to list all of them here but just a few common ones.

At the core わけ(だ) states a reason, explanation, fact, logical restatement, or conclusion. This usage can occasionally be replaced with のだ.

なるほど、そういう可能性もあるわけだ。
I see, so that possibility also exists.

それならいくら探しても見つからないわけだ。
If that’s the case, no matter how hard they search, she won’t be found.

わけがない means “there is no way” and implies that something is not even remotely thinkable by the speaker

そんな馬鹿なことがあるわけがない。
There’s no way such a ridiculous thing would exist.

わけじゃない on the other hand is a roundabout way to negate a situation, circumstance, or logical conclusion.

可能性がないわけじゃない。
It’s not like there’s no chance.

わけにはいかない means that something is not possible according to general knowledge or social expectations.

このチャンスを逃すわけにはいかない。
I cannot possibly let this chance go.

Since わけ is a very strong statement, it is often paired with という in the form of というわけ to soften the impact of the expression.

はず expresses that the speaker expects something to factually be true or come true. It can be similar to the English “should” but it does not cover the entire same range of situations. はず also implies that the expectation is based on reasoning and is not pure conjecture.

こんなはずじゃなかった、こんなはずじゃなかった
It shouldn’t have been like this, it shouldn’t have been like this

さっきまで自分の部屋にいたはずなのに。
But she should’ve been in her room until a moment ago...

その場にいた全員がそう思ったはずだ。
Everybody standing there must have thought that.

べき states that the speaker expects a certain behaviour or state to be upheld, because not doing so would be bad, irresponsible, etc.

この場から立ち去るべきだ。
It would be good to leave this place.

わからないことは聞くべきだ。
You should ask about the things you don’t understand.

There are however some situations where using べき isn't always so heavy, especially in questions when asking for someone's wisdom or advice.

どこに行くべきだと思う？
Where do you think we should go?

When in the past tense like べきだった, it says that an action or state "was" or "would have been" right, usually the latter.

もっと気を付けるべきだった。
We should have been more careful.

べし is an archaic version of べき. Just be aware it exists.

ものだ can also express "should" with the nuance that it's a general "should" that applies to a lot of people, not just a specific person or a group. It is often used to state the nature of “how things are”.

子供は親の言う事を聞くものだ。
Children should listen to what their parents say.

かもしれない is a compound sentence-ender. It attaches the same way as か alone does. It expresses that the speaker thinks the statement is a possibility. Sometimes people attach this to things they know are true for politeness's sake.

まだ寝ぼけているかもしれない。
Maybe she’s still half asleep.

かもしれない is often shortened to just かも in casual conversation.

Approximately with ころ and くらい, and limits with まで, ほど, すぎる

ころ is a noun that roughly means "approximate time". You run into Xのころに a lot. This can either be a conjunction "around the time of X", or a noun like "the general time when X" with the に particle attached. In some situations ころ can attach directly to nouns as the suffix ごろ.

子供のころに見たアニメを思い出す。
I remembered an anime I watched when I was a child.

そういえば、去年の今ごろだったかな？
Oh right, it was around this time last year I guess?

くらい takes a measure or amount (including time) and makes it approximate. It is completely interchangeable with ぐらい and it is entirely up to speaker’s preference.

午後1時ぐらいで大丈夫？
Is around 1pm okay?

It can also be used to mean “to the point where” or “to the level where” and not an inch beyond that.

毎日食べたいくらい美味しかったです
It was delicious to the point where I’d want to eat it every day.

When paired with the は particle it gives a nuance of “at least”.

名前くらいは聞いたことがあるだろう。
You must have at least heard of its name.

まで essentially means "up to" or "until". The limit or boundary marked by まで is included in the set.

世界が終わる日まで。
Until the day the world ends.

まで is often paired with から as 〜から〜まで (from 〜 until 〜).

小さなことから、大きなことまで。
From the small things to the big things.

までに changes the meaning of まで to mean “by” (as in “do something by next Friday”)

明後日までには終わらせます。
I will finish it by the day after tomorrow.

ほど essentially means "as" in terms of a comparison. Deep down the core meaning of ほど is “to the extent of”.

私は彼らほど強くない。
I am not as strong as them.

In positive statements where ほど attaches to an "amount", it's an approximation.

中身はまだ半分ほど残っている。
About half of the contents were still left.

すぎる is a verb and means "to exceed" or "to surpass". As an auxiliary verb, it means "too much" or indicates an excess of activity. It attaches to the ます stem.

美味しいものを食べすぎた。
I ate too much good stuff.

Time references with 後, 前, 先, and 時

後 is a noun that means "after". X後で is a conjunction saying that something happens after X, although not necessarily immediately.

昨日は夕食を食べたあとで、すぐに部屋に戻った。
Yesterday, after eating dinner, we went back to our rooms.

前 is the opposite of 後 and means "before". 前 can both mean before in the spatial sense (i.e. in front of you) and in the time sense (i.e. the past). This is unintuitive because of the notion of "putting the past behind you", but if you think about a line of people waiting, the ones in front of you will take their turn before you. So when it is your turn, theirs will have been in the past.

The conjunction X前に means something happens before X does, not necessarily immediately. If X is a verb, it cannot be in past form.

考える前に、体が動いていた。
My body moved before thinking.

前 and 先 are almost synonyms.

先 is a noun meaning "before", "ahead", or "front part/end". Generally, when 先 is spatial, it means the front ("tip") of something, or the direction it's headed, not the location immediately in front of it.

目線の先には、少女がいた。
A girl was before my eyes. (lit. “ahead of my line of sight”)

Just like 前, it can mean “before” in time too.

それは先に言った。
I said that before.

さっき is a casual version of 先 that is exclusively used to mean a "moment ago".

時 is a noun that means "time", but if you give it a relative clause, it can act like a conjunction (“when” or “at the time of”).

そんなことを考えている時、宿屋の入り口で大声が聞こえた。  
As I was thinking about that, I heard a loud voice around the entrance of the inn.

Verb + 時 behaves differently depending on the tense of the verbs that come in the statement before and after it. There are various rules but in general if the verb before 時 is in past tense, it means that the action after 時 happens as the action before it has already been completed. Don’t try to memorize these rules though, just learn to recognize them as you go.

目が覚めた時、俺は知らない場所にいた。
When I woke up, I found myself in an unknown place.

A bit more: Some extra particles and auxiliaries

As a final lesson, let's talk about a last few particles and auxiliaries that couldn't fit into any of the other lessons.

Most of these are listing particles or emphatic particles that are hard to forget and easy to get a feel for. Consider them a final parting gift of knowledge.

なり can be a list marker that marks examples of possible options.

親なり教師なりの指導が必要だ
The guidance of a parent or a teacher is important.

きり/っきり is an auxiliary suffix with three meanings.

• In the pattern <noun>きり, it acts like an "only" marker.
• In the pattern <statement>きり, it basically means "ever since <statement>".
• In the pattern <verb stem>きり, it can mean “to do <verb> to completion”.

やら is a particle with two meanings. It can be used at the end of a question like か but with a nuance of uncertainty and emotional emphasis.

まったく、何を考えているのやら。
Seriously, what are they even thinking...?

It can also be used to list possibilities/examples, like か for alternatives.

夢の中ならお茶やらお菓子やら出せます。
If it's inside a dream, I can serve things like tea and sweets.

こそ is an emphatic particle that acts a lot like stressing the word in english. In other words, it literally emphasizes whatever it attaches to. It often goes “on top” of other particles like が, は, を, etc and hides them.

こういう時こそ冷静にならないと
It is precisely at times like these I must keep cool.

さえ is an emphatic particle that means "even an X", or "only an X", or "as long as X" depending on the phrase.

私さえいなければ、こんなことにはならなかった。
If only I hadn't been there, this wouldn't have happened.

これさえあればなんとかなるだろう。
As long as we have this, it will somehow work out.

すら is a slightly literary emphatic particle very similar to さえ. すら can replace さえ when さえ means "even an X".

何が起きたのかすら理解できなかった。
I couldn't even understand what had happened.

ずつ is a particle that means "each" or "at a time". It emphasizes that the pace of something is steady.

ゆっくり、ゆっくりと、一歩ずつ。
Slowly... Slowly... one step at a time.

がる is an auxiliary verb that means that someone other than the speaker shows signs of something. たがる is a combination of たい and がる, meaning someone looks like they want to do something.

彼女はそれを知りたがっていた。
She looked like she wanted to know.

がち is an auxiliary verb that means that someone or something has a tendency. The tendency is often undesirable from an outside view.

後ろから、遠慮がちに声が掛けられた。
I was called hesitantly by a voice from behind.

Closing Words

Congratulations. You have reached the end of the main guide. I knew you would make it.

The main content may be finished, but there is still a lot to learn. Every single lesson in this guide has been nothing but a tiny drop in the sea of Japanese grammar and constructions that you will encounter as you continue to immerse and experience natural language in context.

These are simply foundations, and to tell you the truth, they aren't even all of the foundations. There will still be a lot of basic stuff that you will miss, that you will look up, and that you will learn via exposure. As long as you keep moving forward, you will learn it.

Frequently Asked Questions

This is a list of questions that people regularly ask about the guide. These are not questions about learning Japanese, but rather about the Yokubi project.

Why did you steal someone else's work?

It is not a secret that Yokubi is almost entirely based on sakubi. Most of the lessons, topics, and a lot of the phrasings have been straight up copied, rephrased, and rearranged but the core of the guide is still the same.

However, I did not steal sakubi. Sakubi is an open project, given by the Sakubi author (a good friend of mine) to the community as is. It is released under CC0 licensing as public domain. On top of that, the Sakubi project is abandoned and hasn't received updates since 2018. If you still don't trust me, I even talked to the original author and got his blessing with Yokubi.

Yokubi is the official spiritual successor of Sakubi

What are the changes with Sakubi?

I originally tried to keep track of all the changes, both minor and major, with the original guide. But the more I wrote, the more I wanted to change, to a point where the structure is now significantly different. Yet, I can list some of the changes. This list is not a complete list, but should give you a good idea of the amount of work that went into this.

Major Changes

• Lessons have been split into individual pages under an mdbook format rather than a single standalone web page. This makes it easier to browse and share individual lessons with other learners.
• Dropped words like “one form” and “five forms” in favor of ichidan and godan terminology for verbs
• A few lessons and grammar points have been split into separate lessons. Sakubi has 54 lessons. Yokubi has 63.
• Added a new lesson on negative state of being
• Added a lesson 0 on the anatomy of Japanese sentences
• Several lessons have been reshuffled and re-ordered to have more reasonable priority sorting of importance
• Added a section on する verbs
• Added a lesson on ようとする and てみる (rather than an optional section)
• Added a specific lesson for たり〜たり
• Grouped together some "Parts". Sakubi split Section 1 and 2 into several parts. Yokubi has 2 sections with 2 parts each.
• Removed the notion of "intermissions" and "hidden/optional lessons". An appendix index is being planned instead (This is not finished yet)
• Almost every single example sentence has been re-sourced (from native media) and re-sorted by difficulty/appropriateness. Aside a few exceptions, example sentences will not show grammar points that haven't been covered yet.

Minor Changes

• Changed some tone and voice. A lot of first person writing has been changed to a more appealing format.
• Reworded a lot of grammar explanations to be less jargony
• Changed some links to some videos and resources for better (newer) alternatives
• Removed a lot of questionable statements that were incorrect or very opinionated / hard to verify the correctness of
• Fixed a lot of typos and straight up mistakes

Who owns Yokubi?

Yokubi as a project was started by Morg, and the project lives in the public on github. However, the project itself is a community project open to discussion, feedback, and contributions from anyone. A lot of people have helped with ideas, fixes, suggestions, proofreading, testing, etc. If you want to join them too, you can file issues on github, or just join our discord server.

What makes Yokubi better than other grammar guides?

I am very opinionated in how I want this guide to be. There are a lot of other amazing grammar guides (and textbooks) out there if you want to learn Japanese. Yokubi (and Sakubi) aren't the "best" or "the ultimate" guide or anything like that. They are just one way of approaching things. Just like its predecessor, Yokubi focuses on (usually) short, straight to the point, and very direct explanations. It does not hold your hand the whole way. It expects the reader to put in some work and active effort. To look things up, and to achieve independence of their own learning. It also expects the learner to focus more on immersion and natural content, rather than worry about specific grammar explanations to the tiniest of details.

If you believe this matches your idea of Japanese learning, then start from the Before you begin page and get learning. If not, there are other guides out there too. Yokubi is not expected to work for everyone.

What does yokubi mean?

Just like Imabi - 今日 and Sakubi - 昨日 are puns on the words 今日 (today) and 昨日 (yesterday), Yokubi is a pun on the word 翌日, as in the following day. It also doubles down as an inside joke I have among friends, where "yoku" (よく) is used incorrectly as a shorthand version of よくある文法 or よくある言葉 (= "common grammar" or "common word").

And just like that, Yokubi is the common grammar guide.

Credits

We need not forget that we are able to exist today because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Those who paved the way before us, and made it possible to further the search for knowledge and pursue the spread of wisdom. Unfettered by chains, boundaries, or limits.

Yokubi was created as a revised and improved version of Sakubi.

Knowledge isn't property

We shall not gatekeep it, nor its natural evolution, and we shall acknowledge those that helped by paying it forward, to the next generation.

Thanks to

• The people in the EJLX discord server
• The massif.la project for its example sentences
• All those that enjoy arguing online about Japanese, the sparks of knowledge spread every time we butt heads
• The original creator of Sakubi, a good friend

Original thanks indirectly carried forward from sakubi

• The volatile, incredibly productive folks at the Daily Japanese Thread
• Alexander Vovin (japanese linguistics papers)
• Thomas Pellard (japanese linguistics papers)
• Sven Osterkamp (japanese linguistics papers)
• A Reference Grammar of Japanese (Martin)
• A History of the Japanese Language (Frellesvig)
• Dictionary of Japanese Grammar series
• Dictionary of Japanese Particles (Kawashima)
• Visualizing Japanese Grammar series
• Yan and the Japanese People (Let's Learn Japanese 1&2)
• Steve at Nihongonomori
• Tae Kim
• Imabi
• Ixrec
• kWhazit